
aass_L£lii54z. 
Book-^b^ 



IntcrnatioiTal ^ijutatbix ^txm 

\ 

EDITED BY 

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, Ph.D., LL. D. 



Volume XXXI. 



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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES 
THE 

MOTTOES AND COMMENTAEIES 

OF FRIEDRICH FROEBEL'S 
MOTHER PLAY 



MOTHER COMMUNINGS AND MOTTOES RENDERED INTO 
ENGLISH VEKSE BY 

HENRIETTA R. ELIOT 



PROSE COMMENTARIES TRANSLATED AND ACCOMPANIED 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION TREATING OF THE 

PHILOSOPHY OF FROEBEL, BY 

SUSAN E. BLOW 



•' Deep meaning oft lies hid in childish play " 

Schiller 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1902 






Copyright, 1895, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANYo 



Electrotyped and Printed 

AT THE ApPLETON PrESS, U. b. A. 

k 



Aimy aiKt Navy CliJ> 

Mtivl-. 3, 931 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The publishers of this series take great pleas- 
ure in offering to the kindergarten public, and 
to teachers generally, these volumes containing a 
new version of Froebel's Mutter und Kose Lie- 
der, or songs and games for the mother with 
her child. This is justly regarded as the key to 
the philosophy of the kindergarten and as the 
manual of its practice. Miss Blow has drawn 
upon all the resources of her experience and 
study to make this edition a perfect handbook 
for English-speaking mothers and teachers. She 
has enlisted the talent of the poets for children 
to translate with taste and discrimination Froe- 
bel's rhymes. She has been fortunate in getting 
so many translations from Mrs. Emily Hunting- 
ton Miller, whose poems have the simplicity, com- 
pactness, and beauty of old English ballads. New 
music has been prepared by persons who have 
established reputation as composers of music for 
children's songs. The quaint and instructive il- 
lustrations prepared under Froebel's supervision 
have been reproduced from the beautiful edition 
of Wichard Lange, now out of print and not easy 



viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

to obtain. Miss Blow has added a prose transla- 
tion of tlie mottoes, in order that none of the 
subtle meanings of Froebel may escape because 
of the difficulty of presenting them in poetic 
dress. 

Finally, the commentaries have been given in 
as clear prose as can be written. In fact, this 
work is something more than a translation. The 
ideas of Froebel are transplanted into English 
and made to express themselves in English as if 
they had been thought and expressed here for the 
first time. 

To those who know the difficulties in the way 
of such an achievement this will seem marvel- 
lous. The former translators have struggled val- 
iantly to seize the subtle thoughts of Froebel 
and to imitate his sometimes uncouth rhymes. 
In many cases the difficulties have been so great 
as to defy the translator. The necessities of 
rhyme and metre have rendered it impossible 
to preserve the thoughts literally. On the other 
hand, when the translator has been tempted to 
follow too literally the German version the Eng- 
lish poetic form resulting is often something else 
than beautiful. Froebel was not a poet so much 
as a religious mystic. He had a prophetic cast 
of mind, and his ideas would have been better 
expressed in prose were it not for the purpose of 
adapting them to music. He was able to see 
symbols; but poetry is something more than 
symbolism. He lacked the true poetic sense 
which can find appropriate forms of personifica- 
tion for ideas. Poetry transfigures natural ob- 



EDITOH'S PREFACE. ix 

jeets and endows them with souls. The symbol 
only reveals a correspondence between a lower 
and a higher order of truth. Froebel, as master 
of the symbol, possessed an almost preternatural 
insight into educational values. This it was that 
led him to the pedagogics of the kindergarten. 
It is not to be supposed that his providential 
work would have been better accomplished had 
he been of a poetic turn of mind. He would in 
that case have avoided, it is true, the prosaic and 
trifling, but he would likely have missed the edu- 
cational insights. 

It is for us who profit through the labours of 
Froebel to carefully discriminate between the 
good and the bad. An unwise discipleship 
would copy him literally, and take special pains 
to mimic all his false notes. But such a follow- 
ing would prove an enemy of Froebel's cause. 

It has happened that most of the literal imi- 
tations of Froebel's poetry have contributed in a 
greater or less degree to ruin the poetic sense of 
teachers and pupils. Goethe has pointed out that 
the uncouth rhymes and tasteless symbols of the 
Herrnhut congregation, although intended for 
the promotion of piety, yet in the end perverted 
the literary taste, and finally discredited their 
religious ideas when the world came to see the 
grotesqueness of their expressions. If the disci- 
ples burlesque their own doctrines, how can they 
expect them to prevail in the community ? 

For example, the Closing Thoughts (Schluss- 
lied) of the Mother Play are grotesque in poetic 
form, being essentially prosaic in substance, for 



X EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

they form only a philosophic summary of the 
ideas of the book, and not a picture of Nature ren- 
dered transparent by metaphor and personifica- 
tion. A rhymed multiplication table or a rhymed 
grammar is a sacrilege committed against the 
sacred form of poetry. Miss Blow has therefore 
given this summary in prose in the Appendix. 

The publishers have substituted volumes of 
convenient size for the somewhat cumbersome 
music-book style of volume. A separation of the 
contents to adapt the material to two volumes has 
brought together in the first volume the mottoes, 
the commentary, and an appendix containing kin- 
dred matter. This makes what we may call the 
mother's volume, since it contains prose and po- 
etry not suitable for reading to the children. The 
second volume contains the songs and the music 
which the children are to sing in their games. 

The pictures, as before stated, have been re- 
produced from the best edition, that of Wichard 
Lange, with a few figures redrawn to correct the 
dropsical appearance of some of the young chil- 
dren. In the second volume, for the use of the 
children, certain parts of the pictures have been 
repeated and enlarged, in order to show the de- 
tails with greater clearness. 

Miss Blow's introduction explains the relation 
of Froebel to the great philosophic movement to 
which he belonged, and especially to the system 
of Schelling. This view assists one in interpret- 
ing the obscure points in Froebel's doctrine. All 
deep writers need, for their full understanding, to 
have each statement interpreted in the full light 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. xi 

of all that they have written. In fact, it often 
needs a knowledge of all that they have done as 
well as what they have written, and Miss Blow 
has well said that the practical exercises of Froe- 
bel often throw light on his obscure theoretic 
statements. 

Mrs. Eliot's translation of the mottoes has, at 
the suggestion of Miss Blow, interwoven with the 
substance of the original motto many of the ideas 
that are suggested and worked out in the com- 
mentaries — a new feature which it is believed will 
commend itself to the reader. 

The Place of the Kindergarten and the Mother 
Play. 

For the first four years of the child's life the 
family education has been all in all for him. He 
has learned in his first year to hold up his head, 
to clutch things with his hands, using his thumbs 
in contraposition to his fingers, and to follow 
moving objects with his eyes; he has learned 
smells, and tastes, and sounds, and colours, and 
the individuality of objects. He has learned to 
move himself, using his limbs somewhat as a 
turtle does in crawling. In his second year he 
has learned to stand alone, and to walk ; to use 
some words, and to understand the meaning of a 
great many more. His recognition of colours, 
sounds, tastes, and touch - impressions has in- 
creased enormously. He has acquired his first 
set of teeth, and can use them. Imitation has 
preceded the acquisition of language. 

In his third and fourth years his knowledge 



xii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

of the external world has progressed steadily, 
powerfully aided, as it is now, by the acquisition 
of language. For by language the child has be- 
come able to use the senses of other people as 
well as his own; for he listens to the accounts 
of what they have seen, and asks questions inces- 
santly, to draw out the experience of his parents, 
older brothers and sisters, attendants, and ac- 
quaintances. Not only does he learn to see and 
hear through other people — that is to say, get in- 
formation of the results of other people^s observa- 
tions — but he begins to use their reflections, and 
inquires eagerly for explanations. It is a great 
delight for him to discover that things and events 
are little sections in endless chains of things and 
events — little beads, as it were, strung on a great 
string of causal relation — each thing or event be- 
ing the effect of some antecedent thing or event, 
and likewise to become the cause of other things 
and events to follow it. What a wonderful world 
this is to the child, as the principle of causality 
begins to act in his mind, and he wishes to know 
the why of things and events, wishes to learn in 
what sense they are means to something else, 
in what sense they are results of something else I 
Now that the child i)ossesses language, and 
begins to inquire for names — begins to see ideals, 
and to act to realise them — he can be helped 
greatly by the kindergarten method of instruc- 
tion. It should be used first in the house by the 
mother and the nurse, and afterwards in the 
school. The kindergarten wisely selects a series 
of objects that lead to the useful possession of 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. xiii 

certain geometric concepts and certain nnmer- 
ical concepts, that assist in grasping all things in 
their inorganic aspects. It provides for his new 
perception of possibilities or ideals by setting 
him to work at building. It has a series of occu- 
pations — building, stick-laying, drawing, perfo- 
rating paper, embroidery, joining sticks by soaked 
peas, modelling in clay, weaving, etc. In all these 
the child finds relations to the fundamental geo- 
metric shapes that he has learned to know, and 
he sees with clearness and precision how to realise 
ideals. 

The kindergarten, in using the gifts and occu- 
pations, however, does not use the highest and 
best that Froebel has invented. The peculiar 
Froebel device is found in the plays and games. 
Froebel himself wrote the Mutter und Kose 
Lieder, and explained them with all his subtle 
philosophy. The child here, in the plays and 
games, in which all join (pupils and teachers), 
ascends from the world of Nature to the world of 
humanity ; from the world of things to the world 
of self -activity ; from the material and earthly to 
the spiritual. Even in the Gifts and Occupa- 
tions he becomes conscious of his will as a 
power over matter to convert it to use, and to 
make it the symbol of his ideals. But in such 
work he does not fully realise his spiritual sense, 
because he does not find anything in that work 
to make him realise the difference between his 
particular self and his general self. In the plays 
and games he becomes conscious of this general 
or social self, and there dawns the higher ideal 



xiv EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

of a self that is realised in institutions, over 
against the special self of the particular indi- 
vidual. 

In the songs and pantomime the child uses 
his self-activity to reproduce for himself the 
activities and occupations of the world of society. 
He produces a reflection of this world of human 
life about him, and repeats to himself its motives 
and its industries, putting himself in the place of 
the grown-up citizen, and assuming his mode of 
thinking and acting. By this he attains the new 
consciousness of a higher self — acting within his 
particular self, and dictating the customary 
usages, the conventional forms of politeness, the 
fashion set for him to follow — and, above all, he 
begins to have a conscience. Conscience demands 
unconditional obedience, the sacrifice not only 
of possessions, but of life, too, in its behest. 
Here the child climbs up, on this symbolic path- 
way, through play, to the Absolute Mind. He 
sees the ideal laws that are absolutely binding 
above all temporal considerations; he sees the 
moral law. The moral law is an entirely differ- 
ent thing from the laws of matter and motion. 
The latter relate to dead, inorganic substances, 
moved from outside and under fate. The former 
is the law of activity of what is spiritual, the 
living, the human, the divine. It is the law of 
self-activity. No self-active being can retain its 
freedom or self-activity except by conforming to 
moral law. 

The kindergarten does well when it teaches 
the Gifts and Occupations, for it deals with the 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. XV 

world of means and instrumentalities, and helps 
the child to the conquest of Nature. It does better 
with the plays and games, because these are thor- 
oughly humane in their nature, and they offer to 
the child in a symbolic form the treasures of ex- 
perience of the race in solving the problems of 
life. They make children wise without the con- 
ceit of wisdom. And there is no philosophy for 
the young woman to be compared with the phi- 
losophy that Froebel has put into his work on the 
mother's plays and games with her children. 

W. T. Harris. 

Washington, D. C, June 22^ 1S95. 



PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR 



The aim of this version of tlie Mother Play is 
to render Froebel's thought, and to avoid so far 
as possible the tautologies, involutions, and cir- 
cumlocutions of his obscure and laboured style. 

After much reflection, it has seemed wise to 
give both a prose and a poetic version of the 
mottoes. The former I have made as nearly 
literal as possible;* the object of the latter is 
to present in poetic form the salient thought of 
each original motto and its accompanying com- 
mentary. By this plan the reader is brought 
into contact with Froebel's precise thought, and 
may at will accept or reject the additions and 
changes made in the poetic rendering of the 
mottoes. For my own part, I feel that I cannot 
too cordially commend Mrs. Eliot's interpreta- 
tions, or too gratefully acknowledge her patient, 
efficient, and generous co-operation. 

The translation of the commentaries is in- 
tentionally free, and I have, wherever possible, 
woven into the prose the thoughts contained in 

* Appendix. Note V. 



xviii PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 

Froebel's very iinpoetic rhymes. I have rele- 
gated to the Appendix the commentary on the 
Illustrated Title-page,* which is one of the worst 
of FroebeFs lapses into artificial symbolism; the 
prose translation of the pedagogic rhymes in the 
commentary to the Flower Song,t and a prose 
version of the poem entitled Closing Thoughts.^ 

The drawings on the cover of the original 
Mother Play and the commentary explaining 
them have been omitted. These drawings and 
commentary are omitted from the latest German 
edition of the Mother Play, and in my judgment 
the book gains by their absence. 

Since writing the Introduction I have been 
informed by Fraulein Eleonore Heerwart that 
the motto " Deep meaning oft lies hid in childish 
play^' was not chosen by Froebel. It is, how- 
ever, given in both the Lange and the Seidel 
editions of the Mother Play. 

Susan E. Blovt. 

Avon, N. Y., 3Iay U, 1895. 

* Appendix, Note I. f Appendix, Note VI. 

X Appendix, Note VII. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Editor's Preface vii 

Preface by the Translator xvii 

Introduction : Froebel's Philosophy .... 1 
Mother Communings : 

1. Feelings of a Mother contemplating her Firstborn 

Child 

2. The Mother in Unity with her Child . 

3. The Mother's Joy in beholding her Child , 

4. The Mother at Play with yher Child . 

5. The Mother observing the Development of her Child 

6. The Mother talking to her Child 

7. The Child at its Mother's Breast 
Froebel's Introduction to the Commentaries 
Mottoes and Commentaries 



1. Play with the Limbs 

2. Falling! Falling! 

3. The Weather Vane 

4. All Gone ! . 

5. Taste Song . 

6. Flower Song 

7. Tick-Tack . 

8. Mowing Grass 

9. Beckoning the Chickens 

10. Beckoning the Pigeons 

11. The Fish in the Brook 

12. The Target ... 

13. Pat-a-Cake . 

14. The Nest . 



42 
43 

44 
45 
47 
48 
49 
53 

73 

77 

81 

85 

90 

95 

09 

105 

109 

113 

115 

119 

125 

129 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



PAGK 

15. The Flower Basket 1^5 

16. The Pigeon House 139 

17. Naming the Fingers 147 

18. The Greeting 151 

19. The Family 1^5 

20. Numbering the Fingers 159 

21. The Finger Piano 101 

22. Happy Brothers and Sisters 1G7 

23. The Children on the Tower 173 

24. The Child and the Moon 177 

25. The Little Boy and the Moon 179 

26. The Little Maiden and the Stars . . . .183 

27. The Light-bird 185 

28. The Shadow Rabbit 193 

29. Wolf and Wild Pig 197 

30. The Little Window 205 

31. The Window.— The Two Windows . . . .207 

32. The Charcoal Burner 211 

33. The Carpenter . . * 215 

34. The Bridge 219 

35. The Farmyard Gate 223 

The Two Gates 225 

36. The Little Gardener 227 

37. The Wheelwright 233 

38. The Joiner .237 

39. The Knights and the Good Child .... 289 

40. The Knights and the Bad Child . . . 247 

41. The Knights and the Mother 249 

42. Hide and Seek 255 

43. The Cuckoo 260 

44. The Toyman and the Maiden.— The Toyman and 

the Boy 263 

45. The Church 267 

46. The Little Artist 273 

Appendix 279 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 













PAGE 


Illustrated Title Page v 


Mother 


and Child 50 


Games and 


Songs : 


Picture 


1. Play with the Limbs 72 


(' 


2. The Weather Vane . 








80 


<( 


3. All Gone ! . . . . 








8G 


(( 


4. Tick-Tack .... 








100 


(( 


5. Mowing Grass . 








104 


« 


6. Beckoning the Chickens . 








108 


(( 


7. Beckoning the Pigeons 








112 


<( 


8. The Fish in the Brook 








110 


«( 


9. The Target . 








120 


a 


10. Pat-a-Cake . 








124 


a 


11. The Nest . 








128 


<c 


12. The Flower Basket , 








134 


(( 


13. The Pigeon House 








. 138 


« 


14. Naming the Fingers . 








. 148 


a 


15. The Greeting 








. 152 


a 


16. The Family 








. 154 


ii 


17. Numbering the Fingers 








. 158 


a 


18. The Finger Piano 








. 1C2 


« 


19. Happy Brothers and Sisters 






. 108 


(( 


20. The Children on the Tower 

21. The Child and the Moon . 






. 172 
. 170 


a 


22. The Little Boy and the Moon 






. 178 


« 


23. The Little Maiden and the Stars 




. 182 


a 


24. The Light-bird .... 




. 186 




xxi 











XXll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Picture 25. 


(( 


26. 


<( 


27. 


(( 


28. 


t( 


29. 


(( 


30. 


« 


3L 


u 


32. 


i( 


33. 


u 


34. 


u 


35. 


« 


36. 


a 


37. 


it 


38. 


It 


39. 


u 


40. 


u 


41. 


tl 


42. 


a 


43. 


u 


44. 


« 


45. 


a 


46. 



The Rabbit on the Wall 

The Wolf . 

The Wild Pig . 

Shadow Pictures 

The Little Window 

The Window 

The Charcoal Burner 

The Carpenter . 

The Bridge 

The Farmyard Gate 

The Garden Gate 

The Little Gardener 

The Wheelwright 

The Joiner . 

The Knights and the Good Child 

The Knights and the Bad Child 

The Knights and the Mother 

Hide and Seek . 

The Cuckoo 

The Toyman and the Maiden 

The Toyman and the Boy . 

The Church 

The Little Artist 



202 



PAGE 

194 
198 
200 
203 
204 
206 
212 
216 
220 
222 
224 
228 
232 
236 
240 
246 
250 
254 
2G0 
262 
264 
268 
272 



INTRODUCTION". 



FROEBEL S PHILOSOPHY. 



I. The Philosophy of Germany in Froebel's 
Time. 

"Beware," says Emerson, "when the great 
God lets loose a thinker on this planet : then all 
things are at risk." Something over a century 
ago, Immanuel Kant, a little old bachelor of 
Konigsberg, " by whose punctual walk his neigh- 
bours set their watches," and who " in the ordi- 
nary sense of the words had neither life nor his- 
tory," was troubled in spirit over current theories 
with regard to the nature and source of human 
knowledge. To-day we live in a world where 
everything great and small owns his influence. 
" He conquered for his people the empire of the 
air." Indirectly, he also gave them their visible 
empire ; for it was his first great disciple, Fichte, 
who, fired by the Critique of Practical Reason, 
created the national school system of Germany, 
and, by developing the intelligence and rousing 
the patriotism of his countrymen, set in motion 
the influences whose outcome has been the polit- 
ical independence and solidarity of the German 

1 



2 MOTHER PLAY. 

fatherland.* Through its influence upon the will- 
ing mind of Schleiermacher, the reluctant mind ot 
Frederick Maurice, and the hostile mind of Car- 
dinal Newman, the philosophy created by Kant 
and developed by his successors has leavened 
the theologies of Germany, England, and Rome. 
Through Goethe and Schiller it has stamped it- 
self upon German literature. Through Coleridge 
and Carlyle it has penetrated English literature. 
Through New England Transcendentalism it 
has become a power in American literature. 
Through the music of Beethoven and Wagner 
it has stirred in all susceptible souls lofty and 
mysterious emotions. Through Schelling, Oken, 
Cams, Oersted, and others it has laid its magic 
touch upon natural science. Last of all — but, if 
there be truth in the parable of the mustard seed, 
perhaps not least of all — it has bent itself to the 
lowly service of childhood, and, using as its in- 

* *' When, during the years of the French domination, it seemed, 
as though the death knell of German nationality had been rung, 
when cowardly soldiers in masses deserted their flag while the 
battle raged, Fichte saw that the salvation of Germany lay in 
the education of her sons. ' Create a nation by national educa- 
tion !' he cried to the princes of Germany. The princes, at h^s 
exhortation, appealed to the people, and freedom from a foreign 
yoke was their reward. Not Bliicher, not Schornhorst, but 
Fichte drove the French from the Fatherland. Fichte's deepest 
conviction was that the idea of the perfect state could only be 
realized through education. ' The reasonable state,' says he, ' can 
never be formed from existing material by artificial means ; it 
must be evolved from the consciousness of an educated people.' 
The philosopher was the creator of the idea of national educa- 
tion — in one word, the pedngogic statesman." — Wichard Lange. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 3 

strument the mind of Froebel, is visibly trans- 
forming the nurseries and infant schools of all 
civilised lands. 

When Mr. Alcott was asked to define tran- 
scendentalism, he answered promptly : " It means 
that there is something in the mind which did 
not get there through the senses." This defini- 
tion suggests the point of departure for modern 
speculative philosophy. Kant could not believe 
that "all knowledge consists of impressions of 
the senses and the faint images of these impres- 
sions called up in memory and thinking." His 
mind recoiled from the idea that the " ego is only 
a subjective notion, a unity of the series of impres- 
sions called myself." He argued that knowledge 
being a product of two factors — an objective fac- 
tor given in sensation and a subjective factor due 
to the constitution of the mind — thought could 
only arrive at the truth with regard to one fac- 
tor by eliminating the other. Differently stated, 
since the mind in the act of cognition sets its 
own seal upon the data of sense, the removal of 
the impressed signet is necessary in order to 
show what the wax may be in itself. Upon in- 
vestigation the signet turns out to be that of a 
sovereign, and the wax proves itself of a singular 
plasticity. Experience, reasons Kant, is partial 
and contingent. Hence no idea possessing the 
marks of universality and necessitj^ can have 
been thence derived. All such ideas bear the 
royal stamp of mind, and must be native to its 
constitution. Applying this test, he discovers, 
doubtless to his own astonishment, that space 



4 MOTHER PLAY. 

and time must be reckoned among our subjective 
possessions. "All spatial limitation implies space 
beyond the limit/' * or, differently stated, space is 
self -limited. Self -limitation is another word for 
infinitude, and infinitude another word for uni- 
versality. Since the idea of space involves infini- 
tude, it cannot by any possibility be derived from 
sensation, for the testimony of sense is limited to 
the here and now. Furthermore, the idea of 
space is the necessary presupposition of all expe- 
rience of an external world, and the necessary 
presupposition of all experience cannot be derived 
from any finite number of experiences. There- 
fore space must be one of the constitutive ideas 
of mind — a kind of spiritual lens used in all acts 
of perception. Aristotle defines space as the uni- 
versal vessel in which all things are contained ; 
and of course if the including vessel be in the 
mind, there too must be its contents. A similar 
course of reasoning proves the subjectivity of 
time, and by implication the subjectivity of all 
processes of change — growth, development, and 
metamorphosis. With its powers of deglutition 
strengthened by these remarkable feats, Kantian 
thought easily swallows everything that is worth 
swallowing ; nor is its voracity appeased until it 
has proved that being is an a priori idea, and 
hence that nothing dare exist without saying 
" By your leave " to the universal Mind. 

Does this mean that the visible universe is 
merely "an orderly phantasmagoria generated 



* Educational Psychology, Dr. Harris, Chapter VI. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 5 

by the ego and unfolding its successive scenes 
upon the background of an abyss of nothing- 
ness '' ? Is the world man knows only a world he 
makes, and are there behind, beneath, above this 
world great realities, mysterious things in them- 
selves which he can never know ? Or, since with- 
out borrowing from mind the right to be, nothing 
can exist, is the so-called thing in itself a mere 
figment of the imagination, and as the outcome of 
all this storm and stress of thought does little 
man stand forth like the hero of fairy legend 
holding in his hand the heart of the giant uni- 
verse which henceforth shall live and breathe 
only at his good pleasure ? Finally, does each in- 
dividual build his own world, and, if so, how does 
it happen that all individuals build substantially 
the same world ? 

These questions suggest the problems with 
which German philosophy wrestles. Kant 
proves the subjectivity of space and time, and 
thus reduces the knowable universe to a product 
of the self. To Fichte it becomes clear that the 
self who builds the world is not the private and 
particular self of each rational subject. In every 
man there are two selves — a pygmy self and a 
giant self. The former discriminates the particu- 
lar individual from all other individuals; the 
latter unites him with them. The colossal self 
who is in and through and over all particular 
selves is the true world-builder. In an illuminat- 
ing flash of thought Schelling comes to see that 
this colossal world-builder is not imprisoned in 
the realm of subjective intelligence. For in order 



6 MOTHER PLAY. 

to be universal and necessary his ideas must be 
objective as well as subjective, and he cannot be 
less objective than his own constitutive forms. 
Hence the world is a revelation of the Absolute 
Spirit. Finall}^, the vortical movement of specu- 
lative thought returns upon itself in the mind of 
Hegel, who, rigorously analysing the paradox of 
self-consciousness, finds therein a key to all the 
problems of philosophy. Granting that spirit 
makes the world, then in the form of spirit must 
lie tlie explanation of the world-making process. 
The form of spirit is self-consciousness, as was 
perceived by Aristotle when he defined reason as 
the "knowing of knowing.'^ Self-consciousness 
is the knowing of the self by the self, and this 
implies both the distinction of subject and object, 
and the recognition of their identity. The life of 
the spirit is therefore an endless process of self- 
diremption and of the reintegration of its di- 
rempted elements into the synthetic unity of con- 
sciousness. Its history is an endless flight from 
itself in order to find itself. 

Boundless is the illumination of this insight. 
It is the veritable sun of the spiritual .world, and 
in its light all the phenomena of mind are re- 
vealed in their individual distinction and their 
reciprocal relations. What is love but the flight 
of the self to another and the finding of itself in 
this other ? What is holiness but a persistent 
flight of the soul from its own evil ? What is in- 
dividuality but the relationship of the self to and 
its recoil upon an environment of other selves ? 
What is human self-knowledge but the recog- 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 7 

nition by our universal and abiding self of an 
indefinite series of momentary and vanishing 
selves ? What are the antitheses of finite and in- 
finite, chance and necessity, fate and freedom, 
phenomenon and noumenon — in brief, what are 
all the contradictions which vex and baffle our 
understanding, but the paradoxes of a spirit 
which must achieve unity by a triumph over op- 
positions ? Finally, what must be the life of the 
infinite and divine self ? Must it not consist in 
a ceaseless outpouring of its wealth — an eternal 
gift of itself to another, and an eternal discovery 
of itself in this other ? And the visible universe, 
is it not precisely the embodiment of such a di- 
vine life, a synthetic unity wrought of infinite 
differentiation ? * 

The Two Insights of the Kantian School. 

If I have succeeded in sketching roughly the 
development of speculative thought, the reader 
will have perceived that the foci which determine 
its curve are the world-destroying insight of the 
subjectivity of space and time, and the world-re- 
building insight of the objectivity of mind. Be- 
cause he never attained the latter insight, Kant 
held on with desi3erate grip to certain unknown 
and unknowable "things-in-themselves." His 
successors, however, bade these spectres avaunt, 
and, boldly declaring that since mind cannot be 

* Whoever attains this insight will realise how little specu- 
lative philosophy deserves the reproach of pantheism, and will 
understand that it is a presentation by and to reason of the very 
truth which Christianity reveals to the heart — the truth, viz., 
that God is love. 



8 MOTHER PLAY. 

less universal and necessary than its own ideas, 
it must be the one true and only " thing in itself," 
declined to bother their heads with unrealities 
devoid of extension, change, and even existence. 
True attorneys of Reason they proved her title 
to the sphere, and showed that in the so-called 
material world " omnipresent mind lies extended 
all around and about itself." 

Schelling's Insight into the Spiritual Meaning 
of Nature. 

As we have seen, the doctrine that reason or 
intelligence is the identity of the subjective and 
the objective was first announced by Schelling. 
Starting from the self-evident fact that all true 
knowledge implies a correspondence between 
thought and being, he declares nature to be the 
sum of all that is objective in our knowing, and 
the ego to be the sum of all that is subjective,* 
and argues that these two sums must be equal. 
The relationship between nature and intelligence 
is illustrated by the symbol of the magnet. "All 
knowing has two poles which reciprocally imply 
each other. Hence there must be two funda- 
mental sciences, and it must be impossible to start 
from the one without being impelled towards the 
other." f By self -impulsion nature ascends towards 
spirit. By self-impulsion spirit produces nature. 
" All natural objects have their explanation in a 
blind attempt on the part of nature to look at 
itself," or to become self-conscious intelligence. 
Conversely, the whole activity of the thinking 

* System des Transcendentaleu Idealismus. f Ibid. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 9 

subject is the self production of itself as object, 
and the beholding of itself in this object. There- 
fore alike in the dramatically self-evolving proc- 
esses of nature and in the subconscious and partly 
conscious activities of human intelligence we may 
study the becoming of reason. 

In its power of mental provocation this great 
insight is without a rival. It produces in him 
who assimilates it a new temper of mind and leads 
him to be everywhere on the lookout for traces 
of the structure of reason. He makes novel and 
strangely suggestive definitions of nature. She is 
" unripe mind " ; " petrified intelligence " ; " adul- 
terated reason ^' ; " mind precipitated " ; " the im- 
mense shadow of man '' ; " the colossal cipher of 
the soul " ; " the garment of divinity '" ; " the cata- 
ract which reflects in rainbow colours the sun- 
light of reason." " As a whole, and in the rela- 
tion of her parts, she is the dial plate of the 
invisible world." She is " an encyclopaedical, sys- 
tematic plan or index of the human spirit." She 
is " an ^olian harp, a musical instrument whose 
tones again are keys to higher strings in us." She 
mounts towards man, who is " her Messiah." Her 
dead and unconscious products are " her abortive 
attempts to mirror herself." Man is ^"' her higher 
sense"; "the star which connects this planet with 
the upper world, the eye it turns towards heaven." 
The " reason that sleeps in the plant and dreams 
in the animal wakes in him." '* The pungent in- 
fluence of natural objects upon the mind" is due 
to the fact that through them " man imprisoned, 
man crystallised, man vegetative, speaks to man 
3 



10 MOTHER PLAY. 

impersonated." In sum, "men are symbols and 
inhabit symbols; workmen, work and tools, 
words and things, birth and death are emblems, 
and it is only onr infatuation with the economical 
uses of things which blinds us to the fact that all 
things are thoughts.'^ 

Quickened by the insight that nature is a 
symbol in the whole and in every part, alert rea- 
son begins to search for adumbrations of her own 
form, and thus pierces to deeper and more specific 
analogies. Consciousness is recognition of the 
identity of subject and object. It is selfsame- 
ness. Hence, in Nature, "all things are of one 
pattern made," and the universe "an infinite 
paroquet repeats one note." * But the sameness of 
reason is a sameness in difference. Mind is self- 
polarising, and consciousness the " eternal rhyme " 
of subject and object. Therefore, Nature is " bal- 
ance-loving, and makes all things in pairs"; and 
in darkness and light, in the poles of the magnet, 

* " All things 
Are of one pattern made : bird, beast, and flower, 
Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character 
Deceive us, seeming to be many things, 
And are but one. . . . 
To know one element, explore another, 
And in the second reappears the first. 
The specious panorama of a year 
But multiplies the image of a day ; 
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame, 
And universal Nature, through her vast 
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet, 
Repeats one note." — Emerson, Xenophanes. 
See also, in Representative Men, the Essay on Swedenborg. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. H 

in acid and alkali, in the mystery of sex, we find 
writ in characters of sense the law of spirit. Di- 
recting attention less to the fixed antithesis of 
subject and object, and more to the form of spir- 
itual activity, mind reveals itself as a process of 
estrangement and return, a self-diremption into 
specific ideas and energies, and a return into itself 
by the reintegration of its dirempted elements 
into the unity of consciousness. In correspond- 
ence with this circular sweep of the soul, the 
heavenly spheres revolve, days and seasons come 
and go, the great sea ebbs and flows, plants and 
animals repeat the rotary processes of genera- 
tion, growth, and metamorphosis ; or, in scientific 
summary, all Nature is " reducible to a series of 
motions,'' and the " primordial mode of all these 
motions is rhythm." Last of all, the circles of the 
spirit are ascending and widening circles, and in 
its returns upon itself thought mounts to higher 
planes of consciousness. The mark of each higher 
plane is the dissolution of an ever-increasing 
multiplicity of differences into a deeper unity. 
Hence Nature, in the whole and in. every part, is 
evolutionary, and whether in the development of 
the nebula, the seed, the animal, or in the genesis 
of higher species of plants and animals, she moves 
from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, and 
her guiding ideal is the production of specific 
individuality by the harmonising of infinite dif- 
ferences.* 

* " No living thinker," says Mr. Drummond, " has yet found 
it possible to account for evolution. Mr. Herbert Spencer's fa- 



12 MOTHER PLAY. 

From the recognition of reason in nature, 
thought ascends to recognition of reason in the 
unconscious and partially conscious processes of 
mind. The difference between the higher and 
lower forms of intelligence is shown to consist 
not in "the presence or absence of phases of 
thought but in the consciousness of them." In- 
stinct is defined as " genius in paradise before 
the period of self-abstraction.'" Feeling is proved 
to hold thought in solution. Imagination is 
"the use which reason makes of the material 
world '" ; " the affirmation of a real relation be- 
tween a thought and some material fact '' ; " the 
recognition of the reality of reason under the 
shows of sense"; "the power which transub- 
stantiates daily bread into holiest symbol." The 
voice of fable is declared " to have in it some- 
what divine." Fairy tales are "dreams of that 

mous definition of evolution as 'a change from an indefinite 
incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity- 
through continuous differentiations and integrations ' — the for- 
mula of which the Conternporary Reviewer remarked that ' the 
universe may well have heaved a sigh of relief when, through 
the cerebration of an eminent thinker it had been delivered of 
this account of itself — is simply a summary of results, and 
throws no light, though it is often supposed to do so, upon ulti- 
mate causes." — Asce?it of Man, p. 5. 

I entirely agree with Mr. Drummond that Mr. Spencer's 
formula throws no light upon the ultimate causes of evolution. 
It is certain, however, that before Mr. Darwin and Mr. Spencer 
had formulated the theory of evolution it had been accounted 
for in speculative philosophy, and, furthermore, that the clew to 
the cosmic process had been practically applied by Froebel to 
the education of little children. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 13 

home world which is everywhere and nowhere." 
Proverbs are " the sanctuary of the intnitions.^' 
Art is " the presentation of reason to man 
through his senses " ; the "godlike rendered visi- 
ble"; "eternity looking through time." Poetry 
"is science, and the poet the true logician." 
The poet is " the all-knower, an actual world in 
miniature," and his vocation is "to call each 
particular fact to its universal consecration." 
Religions cease to be denounced as products of 
superstition and priestcraft, and are recognised 
as " reason speaking naively " ; as " the highest 
symbols — symbols through which all men can 
recognise a present God and worship the same." 
In a word, " the whole history of humanity, with 
all its changing scenes, stands forth revealed 
as a process of the development and realisa- 
tion of spirit " ; and, unsated even by this full 
recognition of her presence and her deeds, all- 
conquering Reason insists that every product 
and process of thought shall declare her form ; 
and in language, myth, and fable, in art and 
religion, in the contrast between the dull uni- 
formities of savage life and the complex inter- 
dependencies of civilisation, in the rise and fall 
of particular peoples, and in the great cycles 
of universal history, seeks and finds manifesta- 
tions of her selfsameness, her polar antithesis, 
her rhythmic pulsation, and her dissolution of 
ever-increasing contradictions into higher uni- 
ties.* As the outcome of her victory, " every act 

* For a discussion of the nature of self-consciousness in 



14 MOTHER PLAY. 

of introversion, every glance into the mind, is 
proved to be a glance at the veritable outward, 
and an ascension towards heaven/' 

II. Froebel as a Disciple of Schelling. 

My apology for referring to a series of specu- 
lative insights in the introduction to a book popu- 
larly supposed to be a mere collection of nursery 
songs is the conviction that without some ap- 
preciation of the ideas in which Froebel lived, 
moved, and had his being, his writings and his 
educational work are alike incomprehensible. 
He is par excellence the philosopher of education. 
Born in 1782, he was seven years younger than 
Schelling and twelve years younger than Hegel. 
When he was twenty-one years old he read Schel- 
ling's Bruno, and in an autobiographical letter 
he telJs us that he was deeply moved by it and 
seemed to himself to understand it. He so loved 
Novalis (the gifted disciple of Schelling), that if 
for any reason he parted with the volume contain- 
ing his works " he felt as if he had parted with 
himself ; and if anything happened to the book, 
he felt as if it had happened to himself, only far 
more keenly and deeply." Another of his favour- 
ite books was the Psyche of Cams (another disci- 
ple of Schelling, who expounded the philosophy 
of Nature), of which he declares that " he has met 
wdth no work which bears such clear witness to 

art, see Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, William T. 
Harris, pp. 189-235. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 15 

the truth of his own aims and efforts." * He was 
the friend and correspondent of Krause. Through 
Langethal, Middendorff, and his wife, he was 
brought into contact with the thought of Fichte 
and Schleiermacher. His own writings show con- 
clusively that he not only participated in the gen- 
eral philosophic activity of his time, but that he 
was specifically an adherent of that "Romantic 
School" which has thrown so much light upon 
nature, art, mythology, and religion, and which, 
working in and through him, has contributed so 
materially to the solution of the problem of edu- 
cation. 

FroebeVs Statements of the Doctrine of the 
Unity of Spirit and Nature. 

The insight that spirit is the sole reality, that 
this Absolute Spirit is God, and that all beings 
possess life and mind in so far as they participate 
in God, is the key to all those passages in Froe- 
bel's writings which refer to what he calls the 
fact of life-unity and the process of life unifica- 
tion. With the hope of aiding my readers to 
orient themselves in his thought, I quote some 
characteristic sentences from the opening para- 
graphs of the Education of Man : 

" In all things there lives and reigns an eter- 
nal law. . . . This all-controlling law implies as 
its source an all-pervading, energising, self-con- 
scious, and hence eternal unity. . . . This unity 
is God. From God all things have proceeded. 



* See Froebel's Letters, E. Michaelis and H. Keatley 
Moore, p. 387. 



IQ MOTHER PLAY. 

In God all things subsist. . . . The essential na- 
ture of any given thing is the godlike principle 
within it ; the destiny of all things is to unfold 
the divine essence, and thus to manifest God. . . . 
The destiny of man as a rational being is to be- 
come conscious of the divine essence and to re- 
veal it in his life with self-determination and 
freedom. ... To recognise the workings of this 
universal divine principle in nature and in hu- 
manity is science. ... To discern its bearings 
upon the development of rational beings is the 
science of education. ... To apply it practically 
to all kinds of individuals in all stages of devel- 
opment is the art of education. ... To lead the 
pupil to its conscious revelation is the goal of 
education." * 

The correlative insight that the form of self- 
consciousness is the key to the cosmos is the true 
import of Froebel's doctrine of the mediation of 
opposites and the explanation of his recurrent 
statement that all objects must have a triune 
man -I testation— i. e., in and as unity, in and as 
diversity, in and as concrete individuality. f The 
outcome of this insight, as we have seen, is recog- 
nition of Nature as one vast symbol. Hence we 
find that the whole section of the Education of 
Man which discucses natural science and mathe- 
matics is devoted to elucidating and illustrating 
the correspondence between natural and psychic- 
al farts and processes. The following passages, 

'^ See, in Mother Play, Introduction to commentaries and 
commentary on The Church. 

f See, in Mother Play, Introduction to Commentaries. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. lY 

selected almost at random, will show how com- 
pletely FroebePs mind is saturated with this 
thought : 

'' From every point, from every object in na- 
ture and life, there is a way to God." * 

" The things of nature form a more beautiful 
ladder between heaven and earth than that seen 
by Jacob ; not a one-sided ladder leading in one 
direction, but an all-sided one leading in all di- 
rections. Not in dreams is it seen : it is perma- 
nent ; it surrounds us on all sides. It is decked 
with flowers, and angels with children's eyes 
beckon us towards it ; it is solid, resting on a floor 
of crystals ; the inspired singer David praises and 
glorifies it." f 

"If we seek the inner reason for this high 
symbolic meaning of the dift'erent individual 
phenomena of nature, particularly in the jjhases 
of development of natural objects in relationship 
to the stadia of human development, we find it in 
the fact that nature and man have their origin 
in one and the same eternal Being, and that their 
development takes place in accordance with the 
same laws, only at different stages." I 

" Everything is of divine nature, of divine 
origin. Everything is therefore relatively a 
unity, as God is absolute unity. Everything, 
therefore, inasmuch as it is — though only rela- 
tively — a unity, manifests its nature only in and 
through a triune revelation and representation 

* Education of Man, Hailmann's translation, p. 120. 
t Ibid.; p. 203. } Ibid., p. 161. 



18 MOTHER PLAY. 

of itself, and there only in and tlirougli continu- 
ously progressive, hence relatively all-sided de- 
velopment. 

" This truth is the foundation of all contempla- 
tion, knowledge, and comprehension of nature. 
Without it there can be no true, genuine, pro- 
ductive investigation and knowledge of nature. 
Without it there can be no true contemplation of 
nature, leading to insight into the essential being 
of nature.'' * 

More interesting than Froebel's statements of 
the philosophic discoveries of his age are his 
original applications of them. These applications 
are of differing degrees of merit. Some of them 
have proved dangerously misleading both to blind 
and superstitious disciples — and to critics, who 
would have done well to remember Carlyle's 
warning, that " it is well to see a great man be- 
fore attempting to oversee him." Only the stu- 
dent who has insight into the ideas which ruled 
Froebel's mind can justly weigh his work. He 
had drunk deeply of the new wine of thought, 
and was both " intoxicated and assimilated '' by 
the draught. Saturated with the idea that mind 
is the sole reality and that all things must reveal 
its form, he is sometimes betrayed into puerile 
analogies and formal allegories. His absurd 
etymologies are the fruit of an abortive effort to 
trace the activity of spirit in the formation of 

* Educution of Man, Hailmann's translation, p. 152. See 
in Mother Play, commentaries on Light, Bird, Flower and Taste 
Songs, and Finger Piano and Mottoes to Boy and Moon, and 
Little Maiden and the Stars. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 19 

speech. His deduction of the forms of crystals 
from the nature of force is a somewhat happier 
effort to surprise the footprints of reason. The 
much misunderstood symbolism of the kinder- 
garten gifts is an attempt to utilise this deduction 
in the education of ctiildhood. Most of the na- 
ture games in the Mother Play are presentations to 
the phantasy of childhood of those symbolic phe- 
nomena which have nourished the spiritual life 
of childlike men. The Mother Play, as a whole, 
is Froebel's most triumphant achievement, and, 
despite some extravagances and many formal 
defects, accomplishes its double purpose of reveal- 
ing the onward march of reason in the manifesta- 
tions of childhood, and of holding up the ideals of 
reason to childish imagination and affection. 

III. Froebel's Mother Play. 

The genesis of the Mother Play offers no diffi- 
culties to the student who is familiar with Froe- 
bel's life and who has entered into his thought. 
Given a man whose ruling passion is education, 
who has been for twenty-four years an educational 
experimenter, and in whose mind through all 
these years the faith that reason is present in 
the subconscious activities of intelligence has 
been gathering force, and the story of the Mother 
Play is told. Froebel studied childhood and 
motherhood in their inmost union and their re- 
ciprocal influence. He sought for the point of 
contact between the manifested needs of the one 
and the instinctive effort of the other to meet 
such needs. This point of contact he found in 



20 MOTHER PLAY. 

nursery rhymes and in the iinrhymed games 
which had been nursery favourites for unknown 
ages. He defined to himself the unconscious 
ideal which created these rhymes and games, and 
set himself the task of giving it a conscious em- 
bodiment; hence, the differences between the 
games in the Mother Play and their prototypes 
reveal to the student what the instinct of child- 
hood and maternity has blindly sought, and ex- 
plain why its aim has not been adequately real- 
ised.* 

* With the hope of aiding young mothers and inexperienced 
kipdergartners. I venture to suggest a few questions which may 
serve as a general plan for the study of each song, motto, and 
commentary in the Motlier Play. 

1. In what manifestation of the child has this song its point 
of departure ? 

2. What analogous manifestations occur upon higher planes 
of development ? 

3. What are the psychologic implications of these manifes- 
tations ? 

4. Towards what spiritual goal do they point"? 

5. What has been the response, of instinctive motherhood to 
the indicated need ? 

6. What is Froebel's response ? 

7. What differences are there between the mother's response 
and Froebel's response, and wherein does the latter show an ad- 
vance upon the former? 

8. What will be the probable effect of a failure to meet the 
indicated need 1 

9. What are the limitations of the principle which this play 
embodies ? 

10. Wherein does this play show an advance in idea upon 
its predecessors? 

11. What method and what means are employed by Froebel 
to develop this idea? 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 21 

In one of his very suggestive notes to Ro- 
senkranz's Philosophy of Education, Dr. Harris 
points out the fact that Mother Goose's melodies 
give in embryonic form types of character and 
situation whose adequate embodiment is found 
in higher literature. He adds : 

"A scale thus extending from the earth to 
the fixed stars of genius furnishes pictures of 
human life of all degrees of concreteness. The 
meagre and abstract outline is given in the nur- 
sery tale, and the deep, comprehensive grasp of 
the situation, with all its motives, is found in 
Shakespeare. The summation of the events of 
life in Solomon Grundy has been compared to 
the epitome furnished by Shakespeare in the 
Seven Ages ; and the disastrous voyage of the 
Three Men of Gotham is made a universal type 
of human disaster arising from rash adven- 
ture." 

In like manner the story of Little Boy Blue 
suggests the effects of slothful neglect of duty ; 
the man who, having scratched his eyes out in 
one bramble bush, scratches them in by jump- 
ing into another, is a discoverer of that circular 
process by which the recoil of the deed saves 
the doer; Jack Horner is the earliest literary 
representative of that large class of persons who, 
reaping the advantage of deeds not their own, 
plume themselves on their fancied achievement ; 
the Man in the Wilderness is the prototype of 
all foolish questioners seeking solution of un- 
real problems ; and the poor woman who couldn't 
keep quiet on " victuals and drink " crudely em- 



22 MOTHER PLAY. 

bodies the yearnings of a soul which, may not 
dare to live on bread alone.* 

It is because of their truly rational content 
that traditional nursery rhymes have endured 
the test of survival and merit the name of genu- 
ine literature.! It is because many books written 
for children lack this content that they pervert 
and destroy the literary sense. Most baneful of 
all these abortive products of unintelligent minds 
are the books which are forever administering 
sugar-coated pills of useful information and 
moral advice. 

I am anxious to make this distinction between 
true and false literature for childhood very clear, 
because, singularly enough, advocates of the 
Mother Play have been accused of doing the very 
thing they most strenuously condemn. Such ac- 
cusation has arisen from the fact that the ac- 
cusers have failed to detect the difference between 
reason implicit and reason explicit, or, differently 
stated, because they have construed the state- 
ment that nursery literature should present uni- 
versal and typical facts to mean that little chil- 
dren should be expected to understand universal 
and necessary truths. The physical relation of 
man to the lower vertebrates suggests a parallel 
which may interpret the evolution of rational 
ideas. "In the snake," says Emerson, "all the 
organs are sheathed ; no hands, no feet, no fins, 

* See Mrs. A. D. T.Whitney's Mother Goose for Grown 
Folks, from which I borrow these interpretations, 
f Appendix, Note II. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 23 

no wings. In bird and beast the organs are re- 
leased and begin to play. In man they are all 
unbound and full of joyful action. With this 
unswaddling he receives the absolute illumina- 
tion we call reason, and thereby true liberty." * 

Even simpler than the rhymes which furnish 
primordial types of character and situation are 
the nursery plays which incite the first feeble 
stirrings of self-consciousness, and appeal to the 
dawning sense of human relationships. Archaic 
games like Knock at the Door, Peep In, Here 
sits the Lord Mayor, Dance, Thumbkin, The 
Little Pigs that went to Market, and the favour- 
ite nursery trick of tugging at the baby's nose or 
ear and then pretending to show it, are manifestly 
attempts to call attention to the different parts 
of the body, and stir some premonition of its 
membered unity. Bye Baby Bunting, Father's a 
Nobleman Mother's a Queen, Dance Little Baby, 
interpret to the heart of the child his own love 
for father and mother, and their love and care 
of him. Neighbour How do you Do, introduces 
him to social life. Pat-a-Cake, The Miller of Dee, 
Oats Peas Beans, When I was a Shoemaker, 
Here I Brew and Here I Bake, are crude pictures 
of the activities of the workaday world. The 
rhyme of The Church the Steeple and all Good 
People, responds to infantile wonder at the sound 
of church bells and the sight of hurrying con- 
gregations. Such games as Hide and Seek, The 
Five Knights, and others of like kind, stir and sat- 

* Society and Solitude, p. 29. 



24 MOTHER PLAY. 

isfy the craving for recognition. My Lady Wind, 
I had a Little Sister, Hickamore, Hickamore, and 
many rhymes of bird, beast, and flower, owe their 
popularity to their animism. Add to these differ- 
ent classes of rhymes and plays the stories which, 
like The Old Woman and her Pig, The House 
that Jack Built, and The Tree in the Ground, 
present events in a crudely related series, and 
jingles such as If all the Seas were One Sea, 
which remotely suggest the underlying unity of 
all separate things, and we shall have before us 
that deposit of unconscious reason from which 
Froebel drew the material of his Mother Play. 
He has attempted to preserve what was good, and 
to omit what was crude and coarse in the prod- 
ucts of instinct ; to supply missing links ; to pre- 
sent a series of games wherein each is organically 
related to all the others, and by means of dramatic 
and graphic representation, poetry, and music to 
win for the ideals embodied in these games a con- 
trolling power over the imagination. He has 
been, on the whole, successful in his choice of 
subjects, in his pictures, and in his explanation 
of motives. He has been unsuccessful in his 
poems and music. His merit is that of a path 
breaker, and his claim upon our gratitude that 
he has shown us how to abet the activity of 
the inwardly self - evolving ideal, and hence 
without detriment to the child's spontaneity to 
influence the growth of character and the trend 
of thought.* 

* Appendix, Note III. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 25 

It has been said that " evolution implies invo- 
lution and ad volution." * The remark is as true of 
spiritual evolution as of physical. The trend of 
development suggests the character and destiny 
of the developing object. It is therefore from 
human history that we learn to know human na- 
ture. The typical deeds of man as revealed in 
history are the creation of language, the erection 
of social institutions, the development of the prac- 
tical and fine arts, and the pursuit of science and 
philosophy. If we desire to understand any given 
people we study its speech, its type of family life, 
its organisation of industry, its form of govern- 
ment, its religious ritual, its architecture, sculp- 
ture, painting, poetry, and music, its scientific 
theories, and its metaphysics. In these great prod- 
ucts man reveals himself, and we are sure that, 
while they must vary and improve in type, they 
express the permanent and characteristic energies 
of the human spirit. The great object of child- 
study should therefore be to discover the embry- 
onic forms of these moving principles of the soul. 
The duty of education is to give them due nur- 
ture. The aim of education should be to insure 
correspondence between the individual and his 
spiritual environment, and to fit him for partici- 
pation in the universal life. 

It was because simple mother-wit had tried, 
however blindly, to accomplish these purposes, 
that Froebel was able to learn from mothers how 
to educate the child. It is because in the Mother 

* Drumiuond, Ascent of Man. 



26 MOTHER PLAY. 

Play and the Kindergarten Gifts he has lifted 
their instinctive procedure into the light of clear 
consciousness, that they in turn should learn of 
him. 

To childhood and motherhood Froebel owes 
not only the material of the Mother Play, but, 
•what is at least equally important, the idea of 
utilising imitation as a main factor in nursery 
education. His pictures, mottoes, and commen- 
taries, however, prove beyond dispute that, like 
other geniuses, he interprets and improves what 
he borrows, and that his use of imitation is no 
haphazard proceeding, but the practical outcome 
of his psychologic acumen. In the illustrations 
to Pat-a-Pat, The Weather Vane, Mowing-Grass, 
Tick-Tack, Joiner, and Little Gardener, the child 
is shown in the act of imitation ; and since Froe- 
bel, in his Introduction to the Commentaries, 
urges students above all else to study its pictures, 
it is evident that by his repeated portrayal of imi- 
tative activity, he means to emphasise its impor- 
tance. In the commentaries to the Weather Vane, 
Mowing-Grass, and Little Gardener occur the fol- 
lowing remarks : 

" What adult deed is there that children will 
not at once imitate ? Therefore be careful, you 
grown-up people, what you do in presence of 
these little ones." (Weather Vane.) 

" The child will understand all the better the 
work of grown-up people if by imitation he is 
made a participant in it." (Mowing-Grass.) 

" The tendency to imitation in children should 
be most carefully cultivated. Such culture will 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 27 

lighten by one half the work of education. The 
mother who utilises imitation at the proper 
stage of development will accomplish bj^ a touch 
light as a feather what later she could hardly 
do with a hundredweight of words." (Little 
Gardener.) 

In the motto to the Weather Vane, which is 
the first characteristic game in the Mother Play, 
Froebel clearly points to imitation as the practi- 
cal key to the whole book : 

" Is thy child to apprehend another's deed ? 
Then he must repeat this deed. Herein [i. e., in 
the necessity of reproduction to mental assimila- 
tion] is deeply rooted his eager effort to imitate 
the persons and things about him.'' 

Froebel's appreciation of the significance of 
imitative activities is shown even more conclu- 
sively in his deed than in his words. All of his 
games are imitative in the sense that the child 
repeats a movement or series of movements made 
by mother or kindergartner.* Most of them are 
also imitative, in the sense that the child either 
reproduces the activities of persons and things 
about him, or dramatises and thus relives events 
in his own history. 

Within the past few years the attention of 
psychologists has been directed with increasing 
interest to a study of the nature, the scope, and 
the meaning of imitative activities. In the light 
of these investigations the originality of Froebel's 

* As children mature they are encouraged to originate their 
mimetic representations. 



28 MOTHER PLAY. 

attempt to utilise imitation in the education of 
infancy and childhood is clearly disclosed, and I 
should be doing the Mother Play a great injustice 
if I failed to quote the following passages from 
Professors James, Royce, and Baldwin : 

" The dramatic impulse, the tendency to pre- 
tend one is some one else, contains this pleasure 
of mimicry as one of its elements. Another ele- 
ment seems to be a peculiar sense of power in 
stretching one's own personality so as to include 
that of a strange person. In young children this 
instinct often knows no bounds. For a few 
months in one of my children's third year he 
literally hardly ever appeared in his own person. 

... If you called him by his name, H , you 

invariably got the reply : ' I'm not H ; Pm a 

hyena, or a horse-car/ or whatever the feigned 
object might be." * 

"It is an odd fact, and one of vast significance, 
that all of us come by our developed personal 
self-consciousness through very decidedly imita- 
tive processes. Of this fact a later discussion 
may give a fuller account. It is enough now to 
remind observers of children how full of proud 
self-consciousness is the little boy who drives a 
horse, or who plays soldier, or who is himself a 
horse, or a bird, or other creature in his play. To 
be what we call his real self is, for his still chaotic 
and planless inner consciousness, so long as it is 



* Professor James's Psycholoofy, vol. ii, p. 409. Quoted in 
Professor Royce's article, The Imitative Functions and their 
Place in Human Nature, Century Magazine, May, 1894. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 29 

not set in order by liis imitativeness, the same as 
to be nobody in particular. But to be a horse, or 
a coachman, or a soldier, or the hero of a favourite 
story, or a fairy, that is to be somebody, for that 
sort of self one first witnesses from without, or 
finds portrayed in the fascinating tale, and then 
imitatively assimilates, so that one thereupon 
conceives this new self from within, and rejoices 
in one's prowess as one does so." * 

" Nothing less than the child's personality is 
at stake in the method and matter of its imita- 
tions ; for the ' self ' is but the form or process in 
which the influences surrounding the child take 
on their new individuality. . . . 

" It is not only likely — it is inevitable — that 
he make up his personality, under limitations of 
heredity, by imitation, out of the ^ copy ' set in 
the actions, temper, emotions, of the persons who 
build around him the social inclosure of his 
childhood. " \ 

"The point is this: the child's personality 
grows ; growth is always by action ; he clothes 
upon himself the scenes of his life, and acts 
them out ; so he grows in what he is, what he 
understands, and what he is able to perform." X 

The important truth stated and illustrated in 
these several passages may be briefly re-stated as 
follows: The child creates himself. He creates 
himself by reproducing his environment within 

* Professor Royce, ibid. 

f Mental Development, by James Mark Baldwin, p. 357. 

X Ibid., p. 361. 



30 MOTHER PLAY. 

himself. The first form of reproduction is imita- 
tion. Hence, imitation is the true point of de- 
parture both for educational psychology and for 
a wise nurture of childhood. 

Confining ourselves to the practical corollaries 
of the indicated thesis, it is evident that the prime 
duties of parents are to protect the child from bad 
models and to supply him with good ones. They 
should also observe with care what special persons, 
objects, and actions are most frequently imitated, 
for in such imitations the child reveals the native 
bias of his temperament, indicates the line of his 
possibilities, and suggests the dangers to which 
he is prone. They should divert attention from 
persons or things which monopolise imagination 
and threaten to derange the balance of character 
by subjecting it to the tyranny of too few ideas, 
and in proportion to the increasing power of 
assimilating alien experience they should procure 
for the child that variety which is " the soul of 
originality and the fountain of the ethical life.'' 
For what is originality but the synthesis of a 
manifold experience ? What is character but " a 
completely fashioned will '' ? How shall will be 
fashioned save by free choices ? And how shall 
free choices be made unless the mind is con- 
fronted by varying — yes, even antagonistic — pos- 
sibilities of conduct ? 

When, however, we shall have done all these 
things, will there be nothing more which we may 
do ? Does the child need no help in his attempts 
to portray the life around him? It* "nothing 
less than his personality is at stake in the metli- 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 31 

od and matter of his imitations," should we allow 
him to reproduce blindly "the actions, temper, 
emotions of the persons who build around him 
the social inclosure of his childhood" ? Can we 
so perfectly protect him that he will see nothing 
he may not safely imitate ? Would it be wise 
so to protect him even if it were possible ? Is it 
not better to put into his hands a clew to the 
labyrinth of experience by singling out such typ- 
ical phenomena of nature and human life as are 
within his power of apprehension and leading 
him to reproduce them ? Is not this precisely 
what Froebel has done in the Mother Play, and 
through doing it has he not defined the point of 
departure for all true education ? * 

From those who have had occasion to observe 
the influence of Froebel's plays I have no fear of 
the answers I shall receive to these questions. My 
hope is that in the near future their influence 
may be far more widely tested, and that thousands 
of fathers and mothers may see for themselves 
how through these mimetic pictures of nature 
and human life the world into which the child is 
born is born again in him, and mere external sur- 
roundings are transfigured into an ideal environ- 
ment created by his own activity. 

Turning our attention from the use of imita- 
tion to its theoretic implication, we find ourselves 
once more face to face with that great insight 
which has determined the orbit of speculative 

* For the fuller discussion of this subject, see my book on 
Symbolic Education, Chapters V and Vll. 



32 MOTHER PLAY. 

philosophy, and which, acting upon the mind of 
Froebel, created the Mother Play and the Kinder- 
garten. We have recognised in imitation an 
act of spiritual assimilation, and since " between 
things heterogeneous there can be no intercom- 
munion," such assimilation clearly presupposes 
identity of nature between the person imitating 
and the persons or objects imitated. It is because 
the true self in each individual is identical with 
the true self in all individuals that each one of 
us may repeat another's deed. It is because this 
colossal self is also present in nature that the 
child can repeat the activities of natural objects, 
and the man reduce the phenomena of nature to 
spiritual principles. The animism of little chil- 
dren is an expression of the soul's prescient con- 
viction that there is but one real force — the force 
y of will. Their tireless imitation hints the deeper 
•^ truth that all living objects participate in one 
great life, all rational subjects in one great mind.* 
All fires are fed from the sun, and all streams 
from the sea. Yet one torch may light another, 
and every tiny streamlet which grows into a 
great river is fed by tributary streams, by snows 
descending from the hills, by springs welling up 
from the earth. Cut off from these sources of 
supply and replenishment, the rivulet shrinks to 
a thread. Lacking the outlet through which it 
gives away what it has received, it loses itself in 
marshes. In like manner, all true life, all true 
thought, all true love, are divine life, thought, 

* Appendix, Note IV. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 33 

and love. Yet the divine energy must be com- 
municated to each individual through nature 
and through his fellow-men, and it is only as the 
"universe grows I" that the I grows into the 
image of God. 

Discussing the symbolism of the ball, Froebel 
calls attention to the fact that a spherical mirror 
suspended in the air will reflect what is above, 
below, and around it. The uninitiated kinder- 
gartner hurries over this to her meaningless sug- 
gestion, to concentrate her attention upon the 
practical exercises which follow it. The initi- 
ated reader recognises that Froebel is trying to 
illustrate the thought of Leibnitz, that " each 
soul is a monad, which by its self -activity repeats 
for itself the universe." This insight is the key 
to Froebel's recognition of the true meaning of 
imitation, and of his practical attempt to make 
that rock of offence the corner stone of the edu- ^ 
cational edifice. 

No paradox of mind is more interesting than 
that which relates to the connection between 
imitation, moral freedom, and intellectual origi- 
nality. The child who imitates any alien deed 
has formed an ideal, and energises to realise it. 
This is the beginning of moral freedom. He has 
inferred a causal energy as the begetter of a per- 
ceptible effect. This is the beginning of intel- 
lectual freedom. All higher degrees of moral 
freedom will be achieved by ascent from the imi- / 
tation of external deeds to conscious reproduction 
of the ideals which lie back of such deeds. All 
higher degrees of intellectual freedom will be 



34 MOTHER PLAY. 

attained by wider applications of the idea of 
Cd;usality. For to determine actions througli 
ideals is to be self-determining, and hence free, 
and to make a causal synthesis of the elements 
of experience is to win intellectual freedom, or, 
in other words, to become original. He who 
makes a synthesis of experience within a definite 
sphere becomes original in that sphere. He who 
makes a synthesis of all causal energies and com- 
prehends their genesis, achieves absolute origi- 
nality. 

The significance of the Mother Play has long 
been recognised by Froebel's disciples, but the 
current error of regarding it as exclusively a 
book for little children has caused it to be too 
generally ignored by parents, teachers, and stu- 
dents of educational psychology. Froebel him- 
self calls it a " family book," describes it as con- 
taining poems and pictures whose aim is the noble 
nurture of child life, and adopts as its motto the 
saying of Schiller, " Deep meaning oft lies hid in 
childish play." In the original, the volume con- 
tains two hundred and seven pages,* fifty pages of 
which are given up to pictures for the child ; fifty 
pages contain each a poem for the mother and a 
poem for the child ; and the remaining one hun- 
dred and seven pages are addressed in part to the 
mother alone and in part to mother and father. 
Seven introductory poems seek to express the 
mother's feelings as she gazes upon her firstborn 
child : her deep sense of unity with him ; her 

* Exclusive of music. 



FROEBELS PHILOSOPHY. 35 

blessedness in contemplating him; her impulse 
to play with him ; her joy in his developing life ; 
her instinctive effort to foster this life; and her 
premonition of the truth that, as he depends upon 
her for physical nourishment, so his soul must 
be fed from her's. Twelve pages are devoted to 
a brief statement of the psychologic insights 
which are the creative source of all Froebels 
educational work. The rest of the book consists 
of commentaries on the pictures and songs, in 
these commentaries Froebel throws light upon 
such topics as the impulse of movement, what it 
implies, and how it shall be met ; imitation, its 
relationship to mental evolution, and the possi- 
bility of utilising it in education; the nature ot 
sensation and the right training of sense ; the 
significance of gesture as a means of develop- 
ment; the love of rhythm and its recoil upon 
thought and character; childish animism and 
the spiritual truth to which it points; the love 
of hiding, its implications and its dangers; the 
path of ascent from simple movement to produc- 
tive and creative activity; the evolution of love 
and service from physical dependence ; the con- 
temporaneous development of self-consc.ousness 
and social sympathy; the influence of praise and 
blame, and the genesis of conscience. All ot 
these separate beads of insight are strung upon 
the double thread of relationship between the 
child's vanishing selves to his permanent and 
central self, and the identity of this central sel 
with the colossal self incarnate in the social 
whole to which as member he belongs. The ob- 



36 MOTHER PLAY. 

ject of the book is, on the one hand, to describe 
those invasions of the seemingly foreign realms of 
nature and human life by which the child wins 
his personality, and, on the other, to point out to 
the mother how, by responding to a series of in- 
dicated needs, she may come to his aid in every 
crisis of the spiritual battle for liberty. It is 
therefore a book of child study and child nur- 
ture. For what is the object of child study, if 
not recognition of dramatic moments in the pro- 
cess of psychogenesis ? and in what consists the 
art of nurture, if not in directing and shaping 
the ideals through which habits are created and 
character formed ? 

It would seem that in an age which is begin- 
ning to include child study among the sciences 
the Mother Play might have a message for all 
thoughtful persons. It should at the very least 
be read and considered in order that it may be 
intelligently condemned. For mothers and kin- 
dergartners its value can scarcely be exaggerated. 
It opens a path of sympathetic approach to ques- 
tions of the highest practical importance, yet 
which, when discussed abstractly, repel young 
and inexperienced students. By presenting con- 
crete illustrations of psychologic truths it rouses 
interest and kindles thought. By connecting 
these truths with the daily life of the nursery 
and kindergarten it renders its students more 
observant of the manifestations of children and 
more responsive to their needs. By its reiterated 
suggestions of correspondence between the sen- 
sible and spiritual worlds it quickens imagina- 



FKOEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 37 

tion and leads to a loving intimacy with nature. 
By emphasising the essential phases of mental 
evolution, and presenting in embryonic form 
the ideals which have created all literature, it 
awakens interest in science, history, poetry, and 
philosophy, and breathes into the soul the crav- 
ing for wider culture. Hence, in every training 
school where it is made an integral part of the 
course of instruction it creates collateral classes 
for the study of the several subjects enumerated, 
and its stream of influence mingles with that 
flowing from the ideal of university extension. 

That Froebel was a born educator no one who 
studies his life can doubt. His struggling intro- 
spective childhood is one long record of self-de- 
velopment and self -discipline. In youth his first 
conscious aspiration is that, while others give 
men bread, he may be permitted to give men 
themselves. When he stands for the first time 
among his pupils in Gruner's school, he feels to 
his own surprise like a fish in water or a bird in 
the air. At Yverdun his penetrating glance dis- 
cerns at once the strength and weakness of Pesta- 
lozzi. When, roused to the sense of her degra- 
dation, Germany arms herself to avenge the de- 
feat of Jena and the treaty of Tilsit, the spirit of 
the ideal teacher makes Froebel a soldier; for 
" how,'' he says, " shall I hereafter seek without a 
blush to inspire the love of country if I fail my 
country in her hour of need ? " Too true to claim 
the right to educate until he has defined to him- 
self his aim and method, he ponders in solitude 
until his thought grows clear. Too brave to hesi- 



38 MOTHER PLAY. 

tate for want of practical means when once the 
life-giving ideal has dawned in his mind, he dis- 
appears from Berlin, walks on foot to Griesheim, 
spends his last penny for a loaf of bread at Er- 
furt, and deliberately begins the work which 
later grows into the great school at Keilhau. His 
thought is contagious, and moved by its compel- 
ling power his friends give up their own plans of 
life and become the servants of his educational 
idea. In his darkest hour his brother Christian 
puts at his disposal a hard-earned fortune. In a 
single interview he so impresses himself upon a 
gifted woman that she responds to his unique 
love letter asking her to help a great work by 
promptly turning her back on a life of ease and 
gladly accepting poverty, struggle, and miscon- 
ception. His disciples develop into missionaries 
and apostles. For four years Middendorff sepa- 
rates himself from wife and children ; and at a 
single word from the master, Barop takes his 
pilgrim staff in hand and, with five dollars in his 
pocket and owning only the coat upon his back, 
marches resolutely to the help of the good cause 
in Switzerland. The parent school at Keilhau 
grows and flourishes, is attacked, maligned, almost 
destroyed, but putting forth its full strength 
wins a proud triumph over its slanderers. Its 
founder, however, hears an inner call to a new 
work. Taught by experience that schools fail 
because infancy and early childhood have been 
neglected, he consecrates his mature years to writ- 
ing a book of nursery songs, a.nd to the creation 
of the gifts and occupations of the kindergarten. 



FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 39 

In his old age he plays with little children, and 
communicates to young girls the fire of his own 
enthusiasm. " He is mad/' decide the Liebenstein 
peasants as they watch him leading forth the 
troop of barefooted children whom he educates 
through song and play. " He is a prophet," de- 
clares the thoughtful Diesterweg, " and has seen 
as man never saw before into the heart of the 
child." 

What Froebel saw in the heart of the child he 
has told us in the Mother Play. In this precious 
volume he " deciphers all that the child feels in 
cipher," and translates for mothers the hiero- 
glyphic of their own instinctive play. As a 
child's book this little collection of songs and 
games is unique in literature. As a mother's 
book likewise it has no ancestry and no posterity. 
It is the greatest book for little children and the 
greatest book for mothers in the world. When 
all women shall have laid to heart its lessons, the 
ideal which hovers before us in the immortal pic- 
tures of the Madonna will be realised, for then, at 
last, each mother will revere and nurture in her 
child the divine humanity. Am I told that I 
dream impossible things ? I repel the sugges- 
tion of doubters, themselves deceived by the 
" hypocritic days," and fortify my soul with the 
assurance of the prophetess who, sitting serene 
in the midst of the revolving wheel of time, de- 
clares : 

" Den lieb ich der unmogliches begehrt ! " 

Susan E. Blow. 

Avon, N. Y., May, 1S95. 



MOTHER COMMUNINGS. 



MOTHER COMMUNINGS. 



FEELINGS OF A MOTHER CONTEMPLATING HER 
FIRSTBORN CHILD. 

Great Life of all ! my grateful heart 

Turns first to thee 

With sense of kinship and new dignity; 
For is it not through my glad pain 
That once again, 

As in creation's morn, 
From out thine over-brooding life 

A soul is born ? 

Dear husband — father of my child — 

From the first thought 

Which gave us each to each, we have been taught, 
By love, love's sacredness and strength ; 
But now, at length, 

We know it is from heaven, 
Binding our souls for aye through this 

Dear child, God-given. 

Dear child, through fear and pain thou cam'st ! 

But rest thee now 

Upon our loving hearts, the w^hile we vow 
To nourish in thee, day by day, 
As parents may. 

By grace that God doth give. 
That life divine by which alone 

All truly live. 

42 



THE MOTHER IN UNITY WITH HER CHILD. 43 

O Father God ! Life of all life ! 

Love in all love: 

In whom we have our being, live, and move — 
Let this, thy life, flow undefiled 
Within our child ; 

That we may be 
Bound ever closer in thy love 

To him and thee ! 



II. 

THE MOTHER IN UNITY WITH HER CHILD. 

Tell me, my little one, soft and pure. 

What comes from thee to me, 
Stirring me dimly, as stirs the spring, 

With the joy of things to be ? 

" 'Tis the faith which looks from my trusting eyes, 

Faith in thy brooding care ; 
'Tis the love which speaks in my happy smile, 

For I know no ' here ' nor ' there.' 

" Only to lie in thy sheltering arms, 

Where darkness cannot fright; 
And to draw my life from thy loving breast, 

Where, with fingers clinging tight, 

" I tell, as only a baby can. 

Of the hope that thou shalt be 
In the coming years to my opening life 

What thou art now to me ! " 

Dear baby, again look into my eyes 

While I look into thine; 
Together we'll spell life's lesson out; 

Thy faith shall still teach mine ! 



44 MOTHER PLAY. 

All that thy clinj^ing", helpless love 

Has told me I should be — 
All that thy fond hope prophesies — 

I'll strive to be for thee. 

For the faith of thy innocent eyes forecasts 

A larger faith than thine ; 
And as thou drawest life from me, 

I draw from the life divine. 



III. 

THE MOTHER'S JOY IN BEHOLDING HER CHILD. 

Who can tell the mother's meaning, 
When above the cradle leaning, 

Where her baby lies, 
She with if holds sweet communing? 
Broken words, or wordless crooning 

For her need sutRce ; 
But within them, self-surrender, 
High endeavour, patience tender, 

Live as prophecies. 



Oh, tell me, child, what fairy spell in thee 
Makes all about thee still more dear to me ? 
Why do I find in each caressing play 
Such joy as angels in Heaven's service may ? 

Ah, 'tis thy growing life ! which, like a flower 
Now in the bud, brings with each newer hour 
New promise of a beauty yet to be — 
New joy with each fulfilling prophecy ! 

All peacefully within its green defence 
The young bud lies: so wrapped in innocence 
Thou liest, dear; and as the opening bud 
Unknowing gives its beauty to the wood, 



THE MOTHER AT PLAY WITH HER CHILD. 45 

So thy sweet eyes make brighter all my day, 
And shed their angel light upon my way ; 
For as the sun shines in each flower we see, 
Thy soul, from out thine eyes, doth shine on me ; 

While like a victor claiming all his spoils 
Thy baby lips, too, hold me in their toils ! 
Yes, eyes and lips, all that thy ringlets crown. 
Speak to my soul and mirror forth thine own. 

Thy dimpled limbs, which now refuse thy weight. 
Forecast a strength that shall make war with Fate ; 
And all which now I fondle, kiss, and hold, 
Is type of human greatness manifold. 

Thy very weakness seems a proof to me 
Of human nature's higher dignity ! 
For, full-equipped for all its lifelong round, 
Each bird and beast at birth is ever found. 

Ah. that is why my own best life is stirred 
With every tender service or fond word 
Bestowed on thee. To man— distinction proud ! — 
Alone 'tis given to share the work of God I 



IV. 

THE MOTHER AT PLAY WITH HER CHILD. 

Wheke'er your gaze with watchful love is bent 
Upon your child, think well of what is meant 

By each part needed for so fair a whole. 
You learn their value, knowing their intent, 

And so can teach them all to serve his soul. 



I'm so proud of you, Baby, my darling, my own I 
Now listen : I'll tell you how you may be known. 



46 MOTHER PLAY. 

Your dear little Head is too heavy, as yet. 
But that's as it should be with babies, my pet. 
Beneath your fair Forehead shine two happy Eyes : 
I pray they may never grow too worldly wise ! 

A " War of the Roses " is waged in your Cheek ! 
(My fine phrases, sweet one, to you are but Greek I) 
Your Ears, like pink shells, are to hear when I sing; 
I hope they'll ne'er listen to any wrong thing. 

Your queer little Nose is so cunning and round, 
And your sweet baby Mouth beneath it is found; 
And when in your sleep your rosy Lips part, 
Their silence is singing a psalm to my heart! 

And here is your Chin — pretty dimple and all ; 
It holds thousands of kisses, although it's so small. 
Your white Throat and Neck are softer than down; 
And your fine little Back shows how strong you have 
grown. 

Your tiny, plump Hands, with their small Fingers five, 

Are telling each day of a Mind that's alive. 

In each Arm at the turn a dimple is set; 

When they have grown strong, what a hugging I'll get! 

Here's a fine, sturdy Chest, and beneath it I feel 

Your tiny Heart beat. O! through woe and through 

weal, 
May it ever beat true, and learn by-and-bye 
How the Life that we live is fed from on high. 

Here's a strong little Leg — a leg that can kick ! 
Before w^e can think 'twill be striding a stick. 
And here, at the last, are your ten little Toes, 
Like tiny pink buds in two little rows. 

Ah, sweet one ! ere long you'll be running alone ; 
Then where will my own little Baby have gone ? 



THE MOTHER OBSERVING HER CHILD. 4 

I shall miss the dear treasure I've held in my arms. 
With its dimples and cooings and sweet baby charms. 

Yes, out of his babyhood Baby must grow; 
A Soul is born with him — it stirs even now ; 
'Twill unfold like a flower in God's sunshine and air: 
May he help me to guard it, and keep it still fair ! 



V. 

THE MOTHER OBSERVING THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
HER CHILD. 

As the mother hour by hour 
Feels her child's awakening power. 

Earnestly she prays 
Tliat the God of love will fold it 
In his sheltering arms, and hold it 

Ever in his ways. 

But she knows that she is sent 
To fulfil his love's intent 

Towards her little one ; 
And she quickens each endeavour, 
For his love and care are ever 

Working throuarh her own. 



How my baby is growing and changing apace ! 
Each night a new dimple, each day a new grace. 
His head grows so shapely, his forehead so fine ! 
With the gladness of seeing, his happy eyes shine. 
His ear leans attent to each song that I sing, 
And he eagerly smells every flower that I bring. 
When I hold him upright, he springs on my knee, 
And with mere joy of motion he laughs out in glee. 
Already he grasps for a ball or a flower. 
And holds it fast, too, with all his small power. 



48 MOTHER PLAY. 

And when in his bath he splashes and springs, 
He feels the life in hira, as birds feel their wings. 
The life ? — yes, the life — and what does life mean? 
It means the soul in us, the God-force unseen, 
Which thrills into action throug-h each wakening* sense; 
And through action brings slowly — we can not teil 

whence — 
A conscious self-seeing" — we learn to say " I." 
With the conscious " I work " comes life's full ecstasy ! 



VI. 
THE MOTHER TALKING TO HER CHILD. 

The mother who is true to her sweet trust, 

Feels herself richer every day, 
Not only as a mother must — 

Ownmg her babe — but in a way 
Untenable to those who know it not, 
And which, once known, can never be forgot I 

With each caress, each care, each merry play, 
Her own soul deepens for God's love ; 

And as the sun with fervent ray 
Draws each small flower to look above. 

She draws her child's soul forth to meet her own, 

And learns that love, in earth and heaven, is one. 



Come, let me look into your heart, dear, 
Through your beautiful, wondering eyes; 

Now smile at mamma, and kiss her 
In pretty baby wise. 

And reach out your hands to mine, dear; 

They shall bind our hearts in one I 
Then put them up about my neck, 

As you have often done. 



THE CHILD AT ITS MOTHER'S BREAST. 49 

Next show mamma your little ears 

Like sea-shells, pink and white. 
Ah, here they are, for me to kiss 1 

Your curls had hid them quite. 

Now stiflPen your chubby, round legs, dear, 

And stand up straight in my lap; 
I hold you now — ere many moons 

You'll stand alone, mayhap. 

But your life will still lean on mine, dear, 

For mother and child must be 
Drawn together through all their lives, 

As the constant moon draws the sea. 

Drawn together, though long miles should part — 
Together, even as now, 
While I fold you close to my loving heart, 
And press a kiss on your brow. 



VII. 

THE CHILD AT ITS MOTHER'S BREAST. 

It is not food alone. 
Thy little one 

Asks for from out thy store- 
He craves far more. 
With instinct deep and true, 
He asks from you 
That which you first must have, 
If you would give— 
A love God-sent, 
That grows with being spent 1 



With what a pretty greed 

A baby seeks its food ! 
Rounding its sweet, expectant lips, 
Pressing its rosy finger-tips 

With inborn aptitude. 



50 



MOTHER PLAY. 



A lovely parable 

For mother's reading writ ! 
Your baby's soul expectant stands, 
Waiting for food from out your hands- 
See that you nourish it ! 




FROEBEL'S INTRODUCTION TO 
THE COMMENTARIES. 



FROEBEL'S INTRODUCTION TO 
THE COMMENTARIES. 



You are gazing, dear mother, at your child. 
You revere in him a great gift from God. You 
believe that God intrusts him to you for thought- 
ful consideration, for careful nurture. Your 
soul is inflamed by an intuition of the truth that 
in this dear little one the Father of all being 
grants you a revelation of himself. You know 
that God is One, and since your child is in his 
image you are sure that he, too, is a unity indi- 
visible and indissoluble. 

But while you are thus assured of the unity 
of your child's being, there streams through your 
soul a presentiment that this unity must develop 
into and manifest itself through manifoldness 
and particularity. Nor is this all; but with 
this prophetic anticipation of the form of your 
child's self-revelation your soul thrills with the 
certainty that in his manifestation of unity in 
the manifold you shall behold as in a mirror 
your own spiritual image. 

Since your child is unity and yet must reveal 
himself in and through manifoldness, it follows 
as incidental to his self-revelation that there 

53 



54 MOTHER PLAY. 

must arise contradictions and dissonances. In 
the midst of such contradictions, however, your 
own soul may be at peace ; nay, more, you may 
win inexpressible blessedness from the convic- 
tion that in and through the process of life all 
contradictions shall be solved, all antagonisms 
harmonised. As the varied appearances of the 
outer world are reflected in harmonious relation- 
ship in the clear sea of your eye, so the varied 
phenomena of your child^s self-revelation become 
mutually explanatory when life is apprehended 
as one great whole. The idea of the whole is the 
ocean of joy which mirrors in their relationship 
and unity the isolated phenomena of a progres- 
sive experience. 

Through reading the soul of your child, dear 
mother, you will learn to harmonise the contra- 
dictions of his self-revelation with the unity of 
his essence. The movements of his body, the exer- 
cise of his limbs, the activity of his senses, do 
they not all relate to and react upon the one cen- 
tral and controlling impulse to reveal and com- 
prehend life as a unity in the manifoldness of 
particulars ? Do they not declare the effort of 
the ego to feel itself, to represent itself, and to ap- 
propriate, assimilate, and re-create the external 
world ? Does not even the healthy tree appro- 
priate matter from its environment, and, true to 
the law of its own nature, transform it into foli- 
age, blossom, and fruit ? Ponder this analogy, 
and gradually, through recognition of the accord 
and identity of all life, you will gain insight into 
the truth that the One Great Life utters itself in 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 55 

the manifestations of your child, and there will 
dawn upon you the consciousness of your child's 
true essence — the essence of spirit. 

Reflective and contemplative mother, strive to 
define to yourself what it is which rejoices you 
in your child, and how it is that you find your 
own life mirrored in his. Does not your joy 
spring from the fact that identity of selfhood 
manifests itself progressively as essence, life, 
soul, spirit, "and rises through instinct, feel- 
ing, perception, consciousness to clear self-knowl- 
edge " ? And the source of your crowning bless- 
edness, is it not that this self-identity is revealed 
in the manifoldness — yea, let me dare to say it, in 
the discords and contradictions — of life ? Let it 
be your aim to overcome the contradictions be- 
tween your child's isolated manifestations by a 
wise and tender nurture ; so shall you help him 
to win that harmony of life which is a synthesis 
wrought of discords. 

Through your effort to strengthen and develop 
your dear one's power, through your nurture of 
his affections, and through pondering reverently 
the varied forms in which his inner life seeks ex- 
pression, there will gradually arise in your mind 
the conviction that the child not only feels the 
unity of his own being, but has also a yearning 
presentiment of the truth that there is a core of 
unity in each and every being. Nor is his pre- 
sentiment limited to the sense of many distinct 
and separate unities. On the contrary, just in pro- 
portion as he feels in himself a single source and 
fountain of life, his mind is lighted by a fore- 



5e MOTHER PLAY. 

gleam of the truth that back to this living foun- 
tain is to be traced the life of all things. In other 
words, his mind anticipates in feeling the insight 
which you, devout mother, consciously possess — 
the insight that his soul is a spark of the divine 
Life and therefore itself divine, and, furthermore, 
that all existing things and all living creatures 
manifest in various forms and in ascending de- 
grees the life of God. 

Illuminated by this insight, it becomes your 
highest joy, your most sacred duty, to educate 
your child as a unity, whole and complete in 
himself and yet related essentially to Nature, to 
Humanity, and to God. In a single word, recog- 
nising him as implicitly the child of God, your 
devout aim will be so to educate him that he shall 
become actually the child of God. 

Yes, you say, that is my aim. But in what 
way and by what means may this aim be real- 
ised ? The answer to this question is written in 
your own heart, and utters itself artlessly and un- 
consciously in all your simple motherly ways 
and words. Through them you speak to yourself 
and tell yourself what to do. 

And what says your instinctive procedure ? 
It points you for the ways and means of develop- 
ment to the child's body in its manifoldness and 
unity. It points you to his limbs and senses; to 
the hints he gives you that he has begun to notice 
the things about him; to his wrestlings and 
grapplings with the outer world, as shown in 
the effort to reach, grasp, and hold. It points 
you to his nascent feeling of personality, and to 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 57 

his awakening sense of relationship to yourself 
and to all the persons with whom he is brought 
into contact. Such are the hints thrown out by 
your own instinctive words and deeds. O devout 
and contemplative mother, revere their truth and 
obey their suggestion ! Your child must be 
educated in conformity with his own nature, 
in relationship to his total environment, and 
in obedience to the laws which govern both. 
Tlirough his body he is united with the world of 
matter ; through his limbs he is connected with 
an environment which he is ever creating anew 
out of himself ; through touch and taste, smell, 
hearing, and sight, he receives incitement from 
the world of sense; through his nascent feel- 
ing of self, through the stirrings of phantasy, 
through a dreaming and half-waking conscious- 
ness he is related to — nay, shown to be in essence 
— one with the total world of life and thought. 
To comprehend him in his essence and mani- 
festation, in his self-activity and independence, 
and yet in his relationship to and fundamen- 
tal identity with his environment— finally, to 
guard him, to nurture him, and to develop him in 
harmony with the demands implied by his nature 
and his relationships— such, O devout mother, is 
the aim of education ! 

What, then, are the phenomena through which 
the nature of your child reveals itself ? What 
can they be other than the phenomena present 
wherever an invisible unity of essence manifests 
itself in form, whether it be in the realm of plant 
life, of animal life, or of human life ? 
() 



58 MOTHER PLAY. 

Compare the seed and the egg with the 
full-grown plant and the fledged bird. Study 
the analogous development of feeling and of 
thought. Out of the indefinite the definite is 
born. The indefinite is the husk of a rich kernel 
of life. Watch this inner life as it struggles for 
expression in the swelling buds on the trees, in 
the growth of young animals, in the impulses 
of infancy. It will rejoice you to behold the life 
of your child overflowing in activity. It will re- 
joice you none the less to observe his suscepti- 
bility to the incitement which the life outside of 
him ofi^ers to his own. Like young plants and 
young animals, he responds to the subtlest 
changes of light and heat. Akin to his suscep- 
tibility is his excitability. The strings of his soul 
vibrate responsive to the lightest touch. Even 
so the tender plantlet and the unfledged bird are 
affected by almost imperceptible influences and 
modified by the least change in their environment. 

Too often the susceptibility and excitability 
of your child bring grief both upon him and 
upon you. Nevertheless it is through them that, 
like the germinating seed and the growing bird, 
he attracts to himself the influences necessary for 
his development, and achieves spontaneously his 
own distinctive bodily type and his own mental 
individuality. 

More potent, however, than all external stim- 
uli is the child's passionate impulse towards a 
development of his own inner being which shall 
be on the one hand spontaneous and on the 
other in accord with the universal trend of life. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMoMENTARIES. 59 

This passion declares itself in his incessant ac- 
tivity and during the periods of infancy and 
early childhood manifests itself particularly in 
bodily movement and in the energy of sense. 
Hence, notwithstanding the purity of its motive 
it often begets misunderstanding and gloom, 
wrong-doing, strife, and pain. 

In the education of your child, therefore, let 
your point of departure be an effort to strengthen 
and develop his body, his limbs, and his senses. 
From this development of body, limb and sense 
rise to their use. Move from impressions to per- 
ceptions ; from perception to attentive observa- 
tion and contemplation ; from the recognition of 
particular objects to their relations and depend- 
encies ; from the healthy life of the body to the 
healthy life of the spirit; from thought immanent 
in experience to pure thinking. Ascend thus 
from sensation to thought ; from external obser- 
vation to internal apprehension; from physical 
combination to spiritual synthesis ; from a for- 
mal to a vital intellectual grasp, and so to the 
culture of the understanding ; from the observa- 
tion of phenomena and their relations to the 
recognition of their final cause, and hence to tlie 
development and culture of life-grasping reason. 
By such procedure there will be formed in the 
pupil at the goal of his education the clear and 
transparent soul-picture of each particular being, 
including himself, of the great whole to which all 
particular beings belong as members, and of the 
truth that the particular being reflects as in a 
mirror the universal life. 



60 MOTHER PLAY. 

Lead your child from the fact to the picture, 
from the picture to the symbol, from the symbol 
to grasp of the fact as a spiritual whole. Thus 
will be developed the ideas of member and whole, 
of the individual and the universal. Educate 
your child in this manner, and at the goal of his 
education he will recognise himself as the living 
member of a living whole, and will know that his 
life mirrors the life of his family, his people, hu- 
manity, the being and life of God who works in 
all and through all. Having attained to a clear 
vision of the universal life, his conscious aim will 
be to manifest it in his feeling and thought, in 
his relationships and his deeds. Through the 
self-consecration begotten of this lofty ideal he 
will learn to understand nature, human experi- 
ence, and the prescient yearnings of his own 
soul. His individual life will flow with the cur- 
rents of nature and of humanity, and move to- 
wards a realisation of the divine ideal immanent 
in both. Hence his life will be a life of peace 
and joy, and the yearnings which you felt as you 
carried your unborn babe beneath your heart will 
be fulfilled. 



II. 

Have you ever asked yourself, thoughtful 
mother, what means the fervent glow which both 
warms and illuminates your soul as you sit gaz- 
ing upon the dear child lying so peacefully in 
your arms ? Have you ever asked yourself what 
it is that clothes with dignity and grace each sim- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 61 

pie service you render ? what enables you to per- 
form without repulsion duties in themselves not 
only commonplace but disagreeable ? what gives 
you the calmness, patience, courage, and self- 
sacrifice to meet those phenomena in your child's 
life which cause you anxiety and pain ? I an- 
swer for you: It is because each trivial deed, 
whether it concern the cleanliness of your child, 
his nourishment, or the orderly succession of his 
little experiences, is grasped by you in its relation 
to and recoil upon the whole of life. It is because, 
if not with the vision of the intellect, yet with the 
premonition of the heart, you survey your child's 
life in its unity, and realise that each detail of his 
experience will continue to influence his history 
with a power that augments as life proceeds. In 
a word, it is because your soul forecasts his future, 
and in the seeds of the present anticipates the har- 
vest that is to be. 

If you aspire so to nurture your child that he 
shall hereafter fulfil the duties of his calling as 
you fulfil the duties of your maternal vocation ; 
if you wish him to be faithful in least things, 
never to shirk repulsive duties, and to conquer 
the virtues of forethought, courage, and temper- 
ance, you must endeavour not only to stir his 
soul with a premonition of the wholeness of life, 
but also, so far as possible, to lead him to a con- 
scious realisation of the fact that experience is a 
connected process, and that he must hold fast to 
this continuity both in thought and in deed. In 
so far as you illuminate his mind with a fore- 
gleam of this truth will his life manifest upon 



62 MOTHER PLAY. 

each plane of development tliose noble qualities 
which your own life now displays. 

A dream of the unity of life is characteristic 
of childhood. Because this dream is treated as an 
illusion and torn from us, our mature years are 
empty, shallow, and ineffectual, and we fail to re- 
enforce the minute by the hour, the hour by the 
day. Missing the insight into which our childish 
vision might have been transfigured, or gaining 
it too late, we lose the fairest years of life and 
learn no lesson from those experiences which were 
richest in their possibilities. 

What is the fairest X)henomenon of human 
life ? What phenomenon is freighted with deep- 
est and tenderest suggestion ? To what phenome- 
non does art most tirelessly recur ? Is it not the 
phenomenon of infancy, or, rather, is it not in- 
fancy and motherhood in inmost unity and reci- 
procity ? Art, however, presents this phenomenon 
under only one of its aspects, though it conceives 
this aspect in its loftiest and most ideal form. 
But where are the countless other aspects of 
mother-love fostering and developing the infant 
life ? They are lost in a sea of forgetfulness. 
Yet, if we but knew it, they are the waves upon 
which the storm-tossed ship of life might ride 
safely into harbour. 

And now, dear mother, let me try to state 
briefly what I offer you in this little book of 
songs and plays. It is an attempt to aid you to 
recognise in the period of earliest childhood the 
germ of all later life. It aims to interpret to you 
your own instinctive words and deeds, and to help 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 63 

you to a clear consciousness both of wliat you are 
trying to do for your child, and of the inner im- 
pulse whence your effort proceeds. Accept the 
book in a kindly and thoughtful spirit ; study the 
plays ; study especially the pictures. Be not too 
critical of the form of the one or of the artistic 
merit of the other. Remember that the aim and 
spirit of the book are novel, and that I am break- 
ing a path through unexplored regions of experi- 
ence. My success must necessarily be partial and 
imperfect. Nevertheless, I hope to make clear to 
you truths which you have felt but have not ap- 
prehended, which you have therefore often mis- 
interpreted in your actions, and which at best you 
have applied in a detached and hence ineffectual 
form. If my book lifts your hidden impulses into 
the light of consciousness, and teaches you so to 
relate your actions as to make them truly educa- 
tive, you will not be critical of its literary short- 
comings. 

But this book has a mission to fulfil for your 
child as well as for you. As a mother's book, it 
illuminates the present and forecasts the future. 
As a child's book, it preserves a too easily forgot- 
ten past and endows the early years of life with 
continuity. This mission can be fulfilled only as 
song, story, and picture are vivified by your 
thought and warmed by your heart. When, 
therefore, your child has entered upon that stage 
of development wherein thought mounts from 
object to picture, and in the picture discerns the 
symbol, use this book so that it may preserve for 
him the first tender buds of thought and experi- 



64 MOTHER PLAY. 

ence, and help him to conceive his life not in the 
isolation of its particular acts but in the unity of 
its process. By so doing you will bridge the gulf 
between the unconscious and conscious periods of 
life. You will make the plays of infancy a round 
in that ladder of experience over which the soul 
climbs towards self-realisation and self-knowl- 
edge. You will also be preparing your child for 
the retrospective glance which shall assign to 
each round of this ascending ladder its own pe- 
culiar place. 

Recall the feelings which were wakened in 
you by the sight of your firstborn child. Re- 
mind yourself of the thrill with which, as he lay 
cradled in your arms, you noted his feeble and 
aimless movements. Are not these feelings, with 
their tender and yet peremptory incitement to 
nurture, worthy of being themselves nurtured ? 
Is not their nurture essential to the well-being of 
your child and the peace of your own soul ? 
Should we not spurn the suggestion that they can 
be ephemeral ? Were they not weU-springs of 
ineffable joy ? Did they not stir your soul with 
a blessedness too deep for utterance ? Did they 
not transfigure you into a being of nobler and 
fairer mould ? Did not your outer semblance 
take on a new, strange beauty born of the celes- 
tial purity of your transfigured soul ? 

Why was your soul thus exalted, your coun- 
tenance tlius transfigured, as you gazed ujjon your 
infant child ? You need no words of mine to an- 
swer this question. Your whole nature was up- 
lifted by your realisation of the truth that an in- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 65 

expressible blessedness is conferred whenever a 
new soul comes into being. 

We scout the suggestion that the feelings 
wakened in you by the sight of your newborn 
infant can ever die. Yet must not we — must not 
you — admit that in the effort to give him phys- 
ical care and to meet his practical needs, these 
feelings too often grow cold, too often pass away ? 
Should you reconcile yourself to their loss ? Are 
they granted to you only as the sweet reward of 
those unspeakable throes through which God's 
heavenly gift receives earthly being ? or is the 
consecration to which your soul is stirred by a 
celestial breeze wafted from your helpless babe, 
destined to rise into ever clearer consciousness 
and to bless you and him so long as he shall live, 
or at the very least so long as he needs your fos- 
tering care, and until he stands before you a free, 
self -determining, and responsible man ? My own 
faith you will have already divined. May I illus- 
trate by a picture drawn from my own experi- 
ence ? 

In my early boyhood, when a feeling for na- 
ture was just beginning to stir within me, I found 
one day, hidden beneath a hedge of white roses, a 
tiny five-petaled flower of rosy colour and having 
in its centre five golden points. Hundreds of fairer 
flowers blossomed in my father's garden and were 
cultivated by him with anxious care. This sim- 
ple child of Nature bloomed unheeded in a hid- 
den spot. Yet it was precisely this insignificant 
floweret which more than any other attracted 
and held my imagination, and when I peered into 



66 MOTHER PLAY. 

its heart and saw tlie golden stars 1 seemed to 
myself to have discovered a bottomless depth. 
For months and years, whenever this flower was 
in blossom, I was wont to stand by the hour gaz- 
ing into its mysterious heart. It seemed to be 
forever trying to say to me something which I 
could not understand. I never grew tired of 
looking. I was always sure that some day I 
should read its secret. 

With just such a love, such a longing, such a 
presentiment, do you, dear mother, gaze at the 
child opening like a bud before your vision. You 
look into the clear sea of his eye ; in this sea you 
behold the whole heaven reflected. My gaze into 
my flower was like your gaze at your child. 
Hence, without the mediation of words I under- 
stand you and you understand me. But the boy 
wandered from his home — put far behind him. 
the lovely garden, and forgot the flower. In 
youth he rediscovered it, and this time in the 
early spring, and in the close neighbourhood of a 
hazelnut bush. The latter plant had also meant 
much to him in an epoch-making moment of 
life.* Picture to yourself the joy with which the 

* I was often a mute witness of the strict way in wliich my 
father performed his pastoral duties, and of the frequent scenes 
between him and the many people who came to the parsonage 
to seek advice and consolation. I was thus again constantly 
attracted from the outer to the inner aspects of life. Life, 
with its inmost motives laid bare, passed before my eyes, with 
my father's comments pronounced upon it ; and thing and 
word, act and symbol, were thus perceived by me in their most 
vivid relationship. I saw tlie disjointed, heavy-laden, torn, in- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 67 

youth, now on terms of close intimacy with Na- 
ture, found in this close conjunction the two 
plants which had stirred his childish soul with 
deepest presentiments. The old longing aw^oke in 
him. It was in a measure satisfied, for the flow- 
ers declared to him in their own speech the secret 
of existence and the mysterious law of develop- 
ment. But once again the secret was forgotten — 
wdiirled by the vortex of life into the unconscious 
depths of the soul. 



harmonious life of man as it appeared in this community of five 
thousand souls, before the watciiful eyes of its earnest, severe 
pastor. Matrimonial and sexual irregularities especially were 
often the objects of my father's gravest condemnation and re- 
buke. The way in which he spoke about these matters showed 
me that they formed one of the most oppressive and difficult 
parts of human conduct; and, in my youth and innocence, I 
felt a deep pain and sorrow that man alone, among all crea- 
tures, should be doomed to these separations of i^ex, whereby the 
right path was made so difficult for him to find. I felt it a 
real necessity for the satisfaction of my heart and mind to 
reconcile this difficulty, and yet could find no way to do so. 
How could I, at that age and in my position? But my eldest 
brother — who, like all my elder brothers, lived away from home — 
came to stay with us for a time ; and one day, when I expressed 
my delight at seeing the purple threads of the hazel-buds, he 
made me aware of a sexual difference in plants. Now was my 
spirit at rest. I recognised that what had so weighed upon me 
was an institution spread over all Nature, to which even the 
silent, beautiful race of flowers was submitted. From that time 
humanity and Nature, the life of the soul and the life of the 
flower, were closely knit together in my mind; and I can still 
see my hazel-buds, like angels, opening for me the great God's 
temple of Nskture.^Autobiography of Friedrich Froehel, trans- 
lated by Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore, pages 11, 12. 



(38 MOTHER PLAY. 

In mature manhood, when I had found my 
life-calling and consecrated my strength to it, I 
once more came across my flower. The presenti- 
ment which the frail and perishing blossom had 
awakened in my soul had ripened into insight, 
and I had recognised its true symbol in the deep- 
rooted, wide-branching, long-living tree. I had 
rediscovered that mystic tree of knowledge of 
good and evil that grew in paradise, and learned 
f ^-om it to discriminate between right and wrong, 
between illusion and reality. Now, at last, after 
fifty years, I know why in my musing boyhood I 
loved to peer into the heart of the flower. It was 
because my soul was stirred by a presentiment 
of the depth and meaning of life. What I beheld 
in symbol you, mother, behold in reality in your 
dear baby. Must fifty years pass over your head, 
as over mine, before you understand what his life 
is telling you about itself and about all life ? 
Must you, too, wait until life is nearly over be- 
fore you know what it means ? Of what avail 
will such tardy knowledge be to you or to your 
child ? 

What shall we learn from our yearning 
look into the heart of the flower and the eye of 
the child ? This truth : Whatever develops, be 
it into flower or tree or man, is from the begin- 
ning implicitly that which it has the power to 
become. The possibility of perfect manhood is 
what you read in your child's eye, just as the 
perfect flower is prophesied in the bud or the 
giant oak in the tiny acorn. A presentiment 
that the ideal or generic human being slumbers. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARIES. 69 

dreams, stirs in your unconscious infant — this 
it is, O mother, which transfigures you as you 
gaze upon him. Strive to define to yourself 
what is that generic ideal which is wrapped up 
in your child. Surely, as your child— or, in 
other words, as child of man— he is destined to 
live in the past and future as well as in the pres- 
ent. His earthly being implies a past heaven; 
his birth makes a present heaven ; in his soul he 
holds a future heaven. This threefold heaven, 
which you also bear within you, shines out on 
you through your child's eyes. 

The beast lives only in the present. Of past 
and future he knows naught. But to man be- 
long not only the present, but also the future 
and the past. His thought pierces the heaven of 
the future and hope is born. He learns that all 
human life is one life ; that all human joys and 
sorrows are his joys and sorrows, and through 
participation enters the present heaven— the 
heaven of love. He turns his mind towards the 
past, and out of retrospection wrests a vigorous 
faith. What soul could fail to conquer an in- 
vincible trust, in the pure, the good, the holy, 
the ideally human, the truly divine, if it would 
look with single eye into its own past, into 
the past of history ? Could there be a man in 
whose soul such a contemplation of the past 
would fail to blossom into devout insight, into 
self - conscious and self - comprehending faith ? 
Must not such a retrospect unveil the truth ? 
Must not the beauty of the unveiled truth al- 
lure him to divine doing, divine living ? All 



70 MOTHER PLAY. 

that is high and holy in human life meets in 
that faith which is born of the unveiling of a 
heaven that has always been ; in that hope born 
of a vision of the heaven that shall be ; in that 
love which creates a heaven in the eternal now. 
Tliese three heavens shine out upon you through 
your child's eye. The presentiment that he car- 
ries these three heavens within him transfigures 
your countenance as you gaze upon him. Cher- 
ish this premonition, for thereby you will help 
him to make his life a musical chord wherein 
are blended the three notes of faith, hope, and 
love. These celestial virtues will link his life 
with the divine life, through which all life is one 
■ — with the God who is the supernal fountain of 
Life, Light, and Love. 



MOTTOES AND COMMENTARIESc 



I. 

PLAY WITH THE LIMBS. 

Watch a mother's answering play, 

When her happy baby kicks ! 
She will brace her hands to plea.se him. 
Or in loving sort she'll tease him 

With her playful tricks. 

This is not mere fond caprice — 

God invspires the pretty strife ; 
She is leading a beginner 
Through the outer to the inner 

Of his groping life. 

Is it not true, O thoughtful mother, that in all 
you do for and with your child you are seeking 
one aim, returning forever to one central point 
of endeavour ? This aim is the nurture of life. 
The impulse to foster life is the very core of your 
motherly being. It gives unity to your feeling, 
thought, and action. It explains why your feel- 
ing, thought, and activity rise in unison to meet 
each manifestation of life and activity in your 
child. 

Nothing gives you greater joy than this ebulli- 
ent life, provided that its manifestations are strong, 
calm, and in accord with the laws of nature. 
Unless your motherly instinct has been warped 
by habit, prejudice, or misunderstanding of itself, 
it responds at once to the movements of your 
T 73 



74 MOTHER PLAY. 

cliild. You will foster his impulsive movements, 
exercise his strength, cultivate his activity, and 
prepare him through doing for seeing, through 
the exertion of his power for its comprehension. 
In a word, you will seek through self -activity to 
lead him to self-knowledge. 

Your child lies on a clean cushion before you. 
He has been invigorated by his morning bath. 
He is now enjoying a strengthening air bath. 
In the bliss of perfect health he is striking out 
with his little arms and kicking about with his 
chubby feet. Your instinct tells you that he is 
seeking an object against which he may measure 
his strength, and by measuring increase and en- 
joy it. To the need indicated by his lively move- 
ments your motherly love promptly responds, and 
you hold your hands so that the little feet may 
alternately strike against them. 

But you are not satisfied with this merely 
physical nurture. You long to nourish your 
baby's feelings, to stir the pulses of his heart. 
He shall not only learn through your strength to 
know his own. In some way, in some slight de- 
gree, you must make him feel the love which in- 
spires all you do. Hence, as the little play goes 
on, you begin to sing ; and love, the melody of 
the heart, is revealed in the melody of the voice. 

The theme of your song is suggested by the 
lamp which burns beside you through the long 
nights during which your sleepless love watches 
over your baby. It was by an evenly exercised 
strength that oil was pressed from hemp and 
poppy seed. As your child matures you may find 



PLAY WITH THE LIMBS. Y5 

in this symbol a means of leading him first to feel, 
and later to understand, that his harmoniously 
developing activity is the oil which feeds the 
sacred fire of your love. 

The picture which accompanies this game 
shows you an oil mill. Near it grow a poppy 
plant and a hemp jjlant. Use this picture to 
explain to your child, as he grows older, how oil 
is made. Avail yourself also of any opportunity 
which may offer to show him the oil mill itself. 

The upper part of our picture shows a moth- 
er who has found occasion to visit an oil mill 
with her little family. Each child is busy repro- 
ducing in his own fashion his new experience. 
Wishing to stir the imaginations of her children 
with a presentiment of the living, loving, active 
power which works throughout Nature, the 
mother has led them into the mountain valley 
close by the mill. At the head of the stream 
which flows through this valley the older boy 
has found a place to set up his toy mill. The 
water keeps it going merrily. The younger 
brother looks on in mute amazement. He shades 
his eyes from the blinding sun that it may not 
prevent him from gazing at his brother's work. 
The sister seeks ends of her own, and seeks them 
in the shortest and simplest way. Wading with 
sturdy bare feet in the clear brook, she kneads 
the fine sand into a plastic dough. 

Surrounded by her busy children, the mother 
sits musing. She is asking herself why it is that, 
with the same nurture and under the same influ- 
ences, each child shows a different individuality. 



Y6 MOTHER PLAY. 

In the mirror of their spontaneous play she be- 
holds the later life of her three children. Each 
child feels the fascination of the water and its 
mj^sterious force ; yet each is differently affected 
by the one fascination. 

The elder boy (so thinks his mother) will one 
day bend the force of life by means of his intelli- 
gence to purposes of his own choosing. The little 
girl will not know how to use external means 
to gain, her ends. She will hold her aims in her 
heart and pursue them through her own deed and 
sacrifice. The younger brother will follow still 
another path. He is one who will strive to un- 
derstand the nature of force and the method of 
its activity. 

Each one of the playing children is living a 
'present life which is rich and full. The mother 
is enjoying the wealth and fulness of the future 
and the past as well as the wealth and fulness of 
the present. She has noticed the woman who, 
basket on arm, is climbing the hill. " Where are 
you going, my good woman ? '' she asks, and the 
latter answers : " I am going to the oil mill, to see 
if the rich miller will not give me oil in return 
for what I am carrying to him in my basket. 
My little baby is ill, and I must watch all night 
beside him. I want bread, too, for I cannot earn 
anything now, and yet my poor child must eat.^' 
These words bring back to our mother's mind 
the little game she played with her babies in days 
gone by, and as she looks at her children and 
thinks about them, she asks, " Will their future 
lives thankfully reward their mother's love ?" 



II. 

FALLING 1 FALLING I 

A GAME TO STRENGTHEN THE WHOLE BODY. 

All a mother does or says 

Is inspired by thoughtful love. 
" Falling ! falling ! " she is playing. 
But her hand the fall is staying, 

So her love to prove. 

To her child her life is given, 

Thought, and word, and deed, and prayer; 

And her hold, an instant broken, 

To his mind is but a token 
Of her constant care. 

Soon her arms must loose their hold, 

Not, as now, in pretty play- 
Keeping still their circle round him. 
That no jar or fright may wound him — 

But for all the day. 

And for this, her thought and love 

Must his little life prepare : 
Teaching first how she is needed. 
That through her fond cautions heeded 

He may learn self-care. 

It often happens that what lies close at hand 
is overlooked. Through such an oversight this 
little game is without a picture to illustrate and 
explain it. The song and motto, however, ex- 
plain themselves, and the game is a perfectly 

simple one. 

77 



78 MOTHER PLAY. 

You are standing, dear mother, beside a table 
upon which lies a soft cushion, or perhaps beside 
your baby's crib. Your darling is half-sitting, 
half -lying on his plump back in a basket which 
you have made out of your hands. You hold him 
thus a little above the cushion, then, gently with- 
drawing your hands, let him fall upon it with 
just sufficient force to give him a slight shock. 

This game may be played in another way. 
The child lies before you on a cushion. You take 
hold of his hands and raise him into a sitting 
position, then, letting go his hands, you allow 
him to slip back again on the cushion. In this 
case, too, he experiences a slight shock. 

Through this falling or slipping play, in which 
he is watched over by your love and protected by 
your care, your baby increases both his strength 
and his conscioiisness of strength. As he grows 
older you will find many opportunities to show 
him that without such watchful care slips and 
falls may easily become serious, and even dan- 
gerous. 

Yonder is a child gliding in his sledge over 
the slippery snow. His eye is not sure, his hand 
is not strong ; he falls. Fortunately he gets only 
a slight bruise on his leg. What says his pain ? 
" Train your eye, exercise your strength, so that 
in future you may avoid a fall.'' Yonder, again, 
is a boy skating. Heedlessly his eye wanders 
from one thing to another ; heedlessly he lets 
his feet and legs go where they will. He falls, 
but happily only grazes his hand. Collect your 
mind, fix your eye, rule your feet and legs, that 



FALLING! FALLING 1 ^9 

you may not fall again — so says his aching hand. 
But see ! here a little girl has dropped a plate, 
yonder a boy has let fall a goblet ; yet neither 
girl nor boy had once looked away from the 
object in their hands — both had been watchful and 
careful. Why, then, had they dropped what they 
were carrying ? Their grasp had not been 
strong ; they had not really used the strength of 
their hands and fingers. Many a fall and many 
a loss come from anxious care mated with weak- 
ness. Draw these pictures from life for your 
child and set them before him as need and occa- 
sion call for them. So doing, both you and he 
will learn the lesson of the falling game, and 
neither of you will miss the illustration which 
should have accompanied it. 




so 



III. 

THE WEATHER VANE. 

A GAME FOR EXERCISING THE JOINTS OF THE HAND AND 
ELBOW. 

Watch as your baby grows, and you will see 
That his whole life, wherever he may be, 
Is a perpetual mimicry. 

An engine now, he puffs with all his might ; 
Anon, with brows perplexed, he feigns to write— 
Or strides his chair, a mounted knight. 

Brimming with life, but knowing not as yet 
Even the letters of its alphabet. 
He imitates each pattern set. 

And watching him, perchance you question why 
Each new activity that meets his eye 
Excites him his own skill to try. 

His is an instinct ignorantly wise ! 

Only in doing can he realise 

The thing that's done beneath his eyes. 

A stranger 'midst the surging life of men, 
He to his own life-stature shall attain 
By taking — to give back again. 

The forearm and hand of the child are held 
as nearly upright as possible; the fingers are 
spread out to form the tail of the weather-cock ; 
the fiat hand makes its bod^^ the little thumb 
its throat and head. The hand is moved to and 

81 



82 MOTHER PLAY. 

fro in imitation of tlie movement of the weather- 
cock. 

" This play/^ you say, " is too simple." Yet it 
delights your child, and it is long before it ceases 
to give him fresh pleasure every time it is 
played. 

He is not yet able to speak, yet see not only 
with what pleasure but with what seriousness he 
moves his little hand whenever you bid him show 
how the weather-cock turns! Why is he so pleased 
and yet so serious ? Have you never moved an 
object before him in such a way that the motive 
power is not apparent ? Have you never noticed 
that to search for this motive power gives him 
greater pleasure than to watch the moving object ? 
His pleasure in moving his hand comes from the 
same source. He feels and controls the origin of 
a movement, the cause of an effect ; this it is 
which fills his heart with such serious joy. He 
is experiencing the fact that a moving object has 
its ground in a moving force ; soon he will con- 
clude that living objects have their ground in a 
living force. 

On a windy, almost stormy day your dear 
children go with you to the drying place in front 
of your house. Where do children not love to 
follow a mother who is active and busy ? 

Hark ! how the vane creaks on the tower ! The 
wind keeps it going merrily to and fro. Here 
come a hen and rooster ; they cannot turn about 
so quickly as the weather-cock, but the wind 
blows the feathers in their tails from side to side. 
How the clothes flap and rustle on the line! 



THE WEATHER VANE. §3 

They seem to be telling about the strong wind. 
Their flapping and rustling delight the children. 
Yonder little boy was about to bathe in the 
stream, but the wind is too strong ; so he binds 
his bath towel to a tall staff, and high in the air 
it waves and chatters of the wind. Close beside 
the boy sits a little girl who is watching with 
delight the waving handkerchief in her out- 
stretched hand. A third child is flying a kite. 
He gives it more freedom than his brother gives 
the towel, or than the sister gives her handker- 
chief ; therefore it rises higher in the air and 
gives its owner more pleasure. 

Clap ! clap ! clap ! The wind is driving the 
windmill round and round so fast that its sails 
strike. Clap ! clap ! clap ! Hearing the sound, out 
runs a little boy with his paper windmill. It 
turns faster and faster as he increases his speed. 
Whatever a child sees he loves to imitate. There- 
fore be careful, you, his elders, what you do in 
his sight. 

"Do you see the mother yonder? She can 
scarcely shield her little daughter from the power 
of the storm. Do you see the man near her ? He 
finds it hard work to keep his balance and not 
stagger in the raging wind." 

" Mother, this is a very fierce wind ; it makes 
everything bend and shake. See how sister's 
hair is flying about, and how the clothes dance 
on the line ! Where does the wind come from, 
mother, this wind that moves so many things ?" 

" My child, were I to try to explain to you 
whence comes the wind, you would not under- 



84 MOTHER PLAY. 

stand me. I might as well talk to you in a for- 
eign tongue as to tell you that ' the pressure of 
air, or its altered density, or a change in its tem- 
perature, causes wind.' You would not under- 
stand a single word of this explanation. But one 
thing you can understand even now : A single 
mighty power like the wind can do many things 
great and small. You see the things it does, 
though you cannot see the wind itself. There 
are many things, my child, which we can be sure 
of though we cannot see them. There are also 
many things which we can see but which I can- 
not explain to you with words. Your little hand 
moves, but you cannot see the power that moves 
it. Believe in and cherish the power you do not 
see. Hereafter, though you will never see it, 
you will understand better whence it comes." 



ALL GONEl 

A GAME TO EXERCISE THE WRIST JOINTS. 

Baby has eaten all his food, 

And mother says, " All gone ! " 
The while his questioning eyes are fixed 

The empty bowl upon. 

Oh, have you thought out all it means, 

When baby comes to know 
Just this—" My bowl is empty now; 

'Twas full a while ago " i 

He's proved his title to a soul I 

The creatures of the wood 
Know not of now or then, but live 

Cramped in the instant's mood. 

Only to soul -life is it given 

To own the hour that's fled. 
Blest token, that we most shall live 

When men shall call us dead 1 

Every one knows the waving movement of 
the hand (the oscillation from an upright to a 
horizontal position) which tells in gesture that 
some person has gone away, or that of some cov- 
eted object nothing is left. Like the Weather 
Vane, this game exercises the wrist joint, but 
exercises it in a different manner. The idea em- 
bodied in the All Gone is also a reversal of the 
idea embodied in the Weather Vane. In the 

85 



^^^3^i 



'® ifi an.-an. 

„9Bie ma([ ba« ^inb-nc& bed) bad 

SlttmU bciiteii ? 
©inn mu§ b'riti fein, fonft Iie§ 
fid) 'iS nid)t befd^etccn. 
SBiiiJ ie^t ei fat), 
:rsft nid)t niebr ta ; 
2Ba0 ot^en war, 
^sit mxkn ; 
2Ba« ba je^t war, 
@t'fd)aninfen ; 
2Bo ifi 'S benn lun^elommen ? 
liln Qt-manb f)at '«> i^enomnien. 
©ieb, etneS ift in Oetceh, 
t)'vum logt ftc^ '« ^tnb fcef(I)eiben." 





ALL GONE! ■ 87 

Weather Vane attention is directed to a present 
fulness ; in the All Gone it is directed to a pres- 
ent lack. The former points to permanence ; the 
latter to cessation. The one concentrates the 
child's interest upon the present; the other at- 
tracts his attention to the past, pointing him 
again and again to something that has been in 
contrast with something that is. The supper is 
all gone ; the plate is empty ; the candle is burnt 
out. 

The dog has been with father to the field ; 
greedily he devours his food ; he seems to be still 
hungry, but his supper is — all gone. The boy is 
thirsty. " Please, sister," he says, " give me some 
water." " It is all gone," she replies, showing 
him a glass which she holds upside down that 
he may see for himself it is empty. This un- 
expected and unwelcome answer distracts his 
attention from the slice of buttered bread lying 
beside him. Sly puss seizes the opportunity, 
creeps softly near him, and steals his bread. 
When the boy turns to get it he will find it — all 
gone. 

Look at the little girl standing on the bench. 
I am sorry for her. She meant to give her canary 
something to eat, but she carelessly left the door 
of its cage open while she turned to look at the 
empty glass in her sister's hand. "Where is 
your canary, my child ? " " O dear ! O dear ! it 
is gone ! it has flown away ! " 

The little girl's brother tries to comfort her. 
"Come with me, sister," he says; "come to the 
field, for I know a tree where there is a nest with 



88 MOTHER PLAY. 

many little birds in it. I will get it for you, and 
you shall have many birds instead of one. Only 
come ! come ! '' 

The children have all gone to the old tree. 
The older boy has climbed it to get the nest. 
The other children watch him so intently that 
not one of them notices the hungry dog, who has 
followed them to the field and now stands quiet- 
ly eating the bread the younger boy holds in his 
hand. When the little fellow turns round he 
too will find his bread — all gone. The elder 
brother has reached the nest. But what does he 
see ? The nest is empty ; the birds have all flown 
away. One little bird, however, flutters to the 
ground. "I shall have you, at any rate," says 
the younger boy, throwing his hat over it. " How 
glad I shall be to give you to my sister ! Wait 
here, little bird, in the dark, under my hat, till I 
pick the beautiful raspberries growing on this 
bush. How good they will taste ! '' But a frolic- 
some breeze blows over the hat, away flies the 
bird, and the boy, coming back from the rasp- 
berry bush, cries out: "My bird is gone! my 
bird is gone ! " 

"Mother, I don't like this picture. I don't 
want to look at it again. Nothing in it stays, 
and no one keeps what he has." 

"My child, if we want to keep things we must 
be watchful and careful, and we must not let our- 
selves be tempted by everything we see. In order 
to have things when we need them, we must plan 
for them beforehand. The boy forgot his bread 
in thinking of his drink ; the little girl lost her 



ALL GONE! 89 

bird through carelessness. The boy was doing 
wrong who tried to steal the birds from their 
nest. I am glad their courage and strength 
saved them from being caught and put into a 
cage. The other boy lost his bread by forgetting 
it while he watched his brother ; and because he 
could not resist the temptation of going for the 
raspberries, he missed the pleasure of giving a 
bird to his sister.'^ 

" Mother, let me look again at the little bird 
that is getting away from under the dark hat." 



V. 

TASTE SONG. 

As each new life is given to tlie world, 

The senses — like a door that swings two ways — 

Stand ever ^twixt its inner, waiting self 

And that environment with which its lot 

Awhile is cast. 

A door that swings two ways: 
Inward at first it turns, while Nature speaks, 
To greet her guest and bid him to her feast, 
And tell him of all things in her domain, 
The good or ill of each, and how to use ; 
Then outward, to set free an answering thought. 
And so, swift messages iiy back and forth 
"Without surcease — until, behold ! she, who 
Like gracious host received a timid guest, 
Owns in that guest at length her rightful lord. 
And gladly serves him, asking no reward ! 

This parable, dear mother, is for you. 

Whom God has made his steward for your child. 

All Nature is a unit in herself. 

Yet but a part of a far greater whole. 

Little by little you may teach your child 

To know her ways, and live in harmony 

"With her; and then, in turn, help him through her 

To find those verities within himself, 

Of which all outward things are but the type. 

So when he passes from your sheltering care 

To walk the ways of men, his soul shall be 

Knit to all things that are, and still most free ! 

And of him shall be writ at last this word, 

'' At peace with Nature, with himself, and God." 

Like the Falling game, and for the same rea- 
son, this song is without a picture. Fortunately, 

90 



TASTE SONG. 91 

however, illustration is even less necessary in 
this case than in the other. 

Who does not know how you, dear mother, 
turn everything you do with your baby into 
play ? Who does not rejoice that you are able to 
clothe the most important truths of life in the 
garment of play ? 

" Bite the pear ! " " Oh, how sweet it tastes ! " 
" Come, baby, taste this pretty currant ! '' " It 
puckers your little mouth. Is it sweet ? Is it 
sour ? " 

By such pretty devices you try to nurture and 
develop your child's sense of taste. By similar 
playful tricks you cultivate the other senses. 

What is more important than a wise culture 
of the senses ? And what sense needs such cul- 
ture more than the sense of taste, particularly if 
under the word taste we include not only its di- 
rect physical meaning, but also its metaphorical 
significance ? Who would wish to have bad or 
low taste ? Who is not glad when it may with 
truth be said of him, "He has good and pure 
taste ? " 

Why do we commend a man for good taste ? 
Is it not because through taste the essence or soul 
of objects is revealed ? The taste of a thing tells 
whether the thing itself is beneficial or baleful, 
life-giving or life- destroying. Indeed, all the 
senses exist in order that through them the soul 
of things may be made known to the soul of the 
sensitive being. 

It is a striking fact with regard to the objects 
of sense that their inner being or essence is 



92 MOTHER PLAY. 

stamped upon and revealed throiigli their phe- 
nomenal being or manifestation. This is espe- 
cially the case when the sense-object possesses 
harmful qualities. It is well known that almost 
all poisonous plants warn and repel man either 
through their appearance, their odour, or their 
taste. Think of the deadly nightshade, the oak 
apple, the spurge laurel, and the henbane. Are 
you not aware that each one of these plants utters 
its own word of warning ? If the form and colour 
of a plant are silent with regard to its nature, its 
scent and taste will speak the more clearly and 
declare its danger through the loathing they ex- 
cite. Through a similar loathing, taste and smell 
warn us against the excessive enjoyment of an 
otherwise harmless and pleasurable sensation. 
Thus, with excess, the fragrance of lilies produces 
faintness, and the taste of honey becomes nause- 
ating. He who truly cultivates his senses and is 
then pliant to their suggestions will learn through 
them to recognise the true nature of sense-ob- 
jects, and will avoid on the one hand injury to 
his health, and on the other the necessity of de- 
stroying the sense-object in order to get enjoy- 
ment out of it. 

The nature of external objects is revealed in 
the totality of their attributes. Through their 
material and cohesion, through their taste and 
odour, through their form, colour, tone, size, and 
number, and through the endless variation of de- 
gree and relationship in these several qualities, 
the objects of sense speak to us and tell us what 
they are. The words of the sage, " Speak, and I 



TASTE SONG. 93 

will tell you who and what you are/' are relevant 
not only to human beings but to all beings. 
Through a wise culture of the senses we learn to 
read this language of things. Such a culture is 
essential alike to the development of the child and 
to the well-being of the man. It differs entirely 
from the merely physical training of sense given 
by savages. Its aim is to seek the inner nature 
in the outer manifestation. This aim is realised 
only as the activities and attributes of sense- 
objects are systematically observed, compared, 
and connected. 

Who is a man of fine and true taste ? It is he 
who reads aright the language of things. It is 
he who, having discerned the inner being in its 
manifestation, is thereby incited to prompt activ- 
ity. It is he who repels the deleterious and in- 
vites the wholesome influence. In a word, it is 
he who through sensation is aroused to deed. 
Therefore, dear mother, let it be your aim so to 
train the senses that you shall at the same time 
cultivate the heart and intellect ; and in order that 
you may realise this aim, make clear to yourself 
the correlative truths that the soul-activity of 
your child manifests itself in his sense-activity, 
and that through sense-activity he struggles 
towards the soul of things. 

We have seen that the right use of the data 
of sense enables us to classify objects, to recog- 
nise their reciprocal relationship, and their influ- 
ence upon each other and upon man. I should 
add that it also enables us to determine the stage 
of development attained by any given object, or. 



94 MOTHER PLAY. 

in other words, to recognise whether such object 
is ripe or unripe. In its metaphorical applica- 
tion this discrimination is one of paramount im- 
portance. How many of the evils which pervert 
and destroy individuals, families, trades, and so- 
cieties have their ground in premature or unripe 
activity, or arise from expecting the fruition of 
deeds before they have had time to put forth 
leaves and blossoms. 

It is dangerous to force a premature activity. 
It is dangerous to interfere in any way with a 
ripening process. It is dangerous to seize objects 
until they are ripe and ready for seizure. It is 
most dangerous to set unripe things to work upon 
other unripe things. Therefore, mother, if you 
would assure the well-being of your children and 
your children's children, begin early to stir the 
souls of your darlings with premonitions of these 
truths. Begin to stir such premonitions while 
your children are still babies and eager to bite 
and taste everything around them. As they ma- 
ture, teach them to recognise the definite stages 
of development from unripeness to ripeness. 
Show them that the use of unripe things is con- 
trary to Nature. Lead them to understand that 
the use of what is unripe is dangerous alike to 
physical, intellectual, and moral life — is destruc- 
tive both to the individual and to society. If you 
can teach your children this truth and make 
them obedient to its warning, you will be one of 
the greatest benefactors of the human race. 



VI. 

FLOWER SONG. 

The Life Supreme, that lives in all, 

Gives everything its own ; 
A soul remains itself despite 
Life's ceaseless shift— Death's sure, cold might 

It^eif— though changed or grown. 

And something to a soul akin 

Looks out from every flower; 
A lily is a lily still, 
On mountain bleak, by meadow rill, 

In sunshine or in shower. 

Ten thousand roses June may boast, 

All differing each from each ; 
And still the rose-soul in each one 
Glows fervent, as if there alone 

Its silence had found speech. 

The importance of cultivating the senses has 
been suggested in my commentary on the Taste 
Song. In the same commentary I have pointed 
out the peculiar significance of the sense of taste 
as the organ through which the inmost nature of 
external objects is suggested to the percipient 
subject. 

Closely allied to the sense of taste is the sense 
of smell. Indeed, these senses are like twin sis- 
ters in their intimate union and their reciprocal 
influence. By complementing each other they 
enable us to recognise external objects as bene- 

95 



96 MOTHER PLAY. 

ficial or detrimental; and this not only in rela- 
tion to physical life, but to the higher life of the 
spirit. Very difficult would it be to say where 
the purely physical influence of sensible objects 
ends and where their spiritual influence begins. 
In sensation the physical and psychical, the 
merely vital and the intellectual, the instinctive 
and the moral, melt into each other. Hence the 
importance of sense culture. Hence particularly 
the importance of cultivating, ennobling, refin- 
ing the senses of taste and smell. 

Rightly regarded, taste and smell are seen to 
be not two distinct senses but two aspects of one 
sense. Moreover, they not only complement each 
other, but supply the deficiencies of the other 
senses. Thus in many cases where the data of 
sight and taste leave us in uncertainty with re- 
gard to the nature of objects, the sense of smell 
makes it clear to us. I have already pointed out 
the fact that things which are injurious to health 
give warning of their danger to the sense of sight 
by their gloomy and repellent appearance ; to the 
senses of taste and smell by producing nausea 
and aversion. It may be added that they also 
often warn the sense of hearing by emitting hol- 
low or discordant tones. As an illustration of 
this I may mention the ring of different metals. 
Hence we say, metaphorically "Such or such a 
person has the true ring." Finally, as has been 
already suggested, things in themselves good and 
healthful, but which become injurious when par- 
taken of in excess, warn us by faintness and nau- 
sea to be temperate in our enjoyment of them. 



FLOWER SONG. 97 

Thus the scent of lilacs becomes oppressive in a 
small room. In general, excess engenders dis- 
gust, and disgust becomes loathing. Rightly in- 
terpreting and obeying these warnings of sense, 
we shall avoid what is physically or morally 
injurious. 

All these truths, dear mother, you may clothe 
in a garment of play. You may then lift them 
nearer to the light of consciousness by your talks 
with your child about his play. Do not forget 
the fact that the data of smell, like those of taste, 
are important not only in their literal but in their 
metaphorical sense. It is significant that in the 
transfer of the phenomena of smell from the 
physical to the moral realm there is usually im- 
puted to them an evil meaning. Thus we speak 
of the odour of hypocrisy ; or we say " a man's 
name is in evil odour."' 

" Mother, my head aches." 

"What have you been doing to make it 
ache?" 

" I don't know. I have oidy gathered a great 
many beautiful flowers and put them in Avater." 

" That is just what is the matter. You have 
brought a great many strongly scented flowers, 
and particularly a great man}^ lilies, into a very 
small room. Their fragrance makes the air op- 
pressive, and this it is which has given you a 
headache. One may do too much even of a good 
thing. Besides, tliat which is good in itself 
needs plenty of room for its activity in order 
that its influence may be good. If this were 
not so, men — yes, and little children too — would 



98 MOTHER PLAY. 

selfishly try to gather and keep for themselves 
the things that are good and beautiful, and would 
not remember that the good and the beautiful 
are for all/' 

"O mother, the plants and flowers love us, 
just as you do ! " * 

* See Appendix, note vi. 



VII. 
TICK-TACK. 

A GAME TO EXERCISE AND DEVELOP THE ARMS. 

Oh, teach your child that those who move 

By Order's kindly law, 
Find all their lives to music set ; 
While those who this same law forget 

Find only fret and jar. 

The clock is not a master hard, 

Kuling with iron hand ; 
It is a happy household sprite, 
Helping all things to move aright, 

With gentle guiding wand. 

Its quiet tick still seems to say, 

" Though time pass velvet shod, 
It guides the universal round 
Of worlds and souls — for it is found 

Deep in the thought of God I " 

This game is easy to play. Your child may 
sit in your lap or stand upon a table. All that 
is necessary is that his arms should be free so that 
you may swing them to and fro like a pendulum. 
It goes without saying that the movement should 
be made alternately with the right and left arm. 
It may, however, not be superfluous to suggest 
that you may further the harmonious physical 
development of your child by also swinging his 
legs. Such varied exercises will contribute to his 

99 



TICK-TACK. 101 

healthy growth as well as to his beauty, litheness, 
and grace. 

" Shall we now talk a little together about the 
picture ? You know all I have to say better than 
I know it myself. Indeed, I learned it from you 
— learned it by watching your thoughtful, moth- 
erly play.'' 

Your instinct has taught you truly that every- 
thing in the nature of a timepiece has an irresist- 
ible charm for children. Why is this ? The 
movement of the pendulum has given us the clew 
to many a truth of mathematics and mechanics. 
Can it be that a presentiment of its suggestive- 
ness in these directions explains its allurement ? 
There is a certain remote kinship between the 
rhythmic swing of the pendulum and the form 
of our soul-activity. Is this the secret of its 
charm ? Or, setting aside both these suggestions, 
shall we say that the movement, the turning 
wheels, the apparent life in the clock are the 
sources of its allurement, and that this allure- 
ment is heightened by a sense of concealment 
and mystery ? 

That each of these explanations throws some 
light upon the source of the child's interest in 
the clock I freely admit. That any one of them 
or all of them fully account for his interest I 
must deny ; for it is not alone the clock which 
fascinates him: his imagination is stirred by 
any kind of timepiece. Thus, children love to 
watch the slowly running sand in an hour- 
glass. They also love to make and watch sun- 
dials, though in these there is no movement 



102 MOTHER PLAY. 

save the almost imperceptible progress of the 
shadow. 

My own conviction is that the delight of chil- 
dren in watching, imitating, and making time- 
pieces springs from a dim presentiment of the 
importance of time itself. This conviction of 
mine hurts neither the child nor any one else. 
In its practical outcome it is helpful to the child 
and to every one. Who does not know how much 
depends upon the right use of time ? Who does 
not know the importance of order and punctu- 
ality in all the relationships of life ? To me it 
seems that there is no single thing which, from 
the day of his birth, is more important for man 
than the doing of things at the right time. In 
the first moments after birth, indeed, his life itself 
may be said to depend on the right use of time. 

It is therefore of the highest importance to 
make the allurement of the clock the point of 
departure for so educating the child that he shall 
carefully consider, truly apprehend, and worthily 
employ time. Use my little arm game m this 
spirit. Lead your dear child through playing it 
to begin thinking about time, and to begin to 
feel that there is a right time for whatever he 
has to do. If you train him in this way he will 
understand you when, later, you deny him a 
pleasure because it is time for doing something 
else. 

" Mother, show me this pretty picture." 

"My child, see what your kitten is doing. 
She is cleaning and smoothing her soft fur so 
that it will be a pleasure to look at her. She 



TICK-TACK. 103 

knows it will soon be time for some welcome visit- 
ors to arrive. Come, darling, come, and be made 
neat and clean, like your kitty, for two dear 
friends will soon be here to see you. Do you 
know who they are ? They are your father's 
dear eyes. They must find you fresh and clean." 

The child is always having visitors. The 
bright rays of the sun come to see him ; so do the 
twinkling stars, the shining moon, the white 
doves, the fair, sweet flowers. They love to see 
and play with a clean, sweet child. Teach your 
child, mother, to love these pure friends, and to 
make ready for them by being clean and pure 
himself. 

" Do you see in the picture five little children 
who are playing ' clock ' ? * These five children 
are surely five little fingers who want to learn to 
tell the time, so that they can do everything at 
just the right moment. Come here, you dear little 
fingers on my child^s hand, and learn something 
from the five children in the picture." 

* It is characteristic of childish thought to link activity 
with its object. Hence children often form active verbs from 
nouns. For example, a little child said, " I will road it," instead 
of, " I will go play in the road." This tendency should not be 
too abruptly corrected. It furnishes a key to many peculiarities 
of dialect. Thus, in one part of Switzerland people say, " What 
clock's it ? " instead of " What o'clock is it ? " 



VIII. 
MOWING GRASS, 

AN ARM GAME. 

Take from out the sweetest song 
Just one note — the sweetest one ; 

You may sound it full and strong, 
But its music is all gone ! 

And the children learn to see, 

In a little game like this, 
That in true activity 

Nothing unrelated is, 

' Your child's hands are both, at rest. The 
forearms are extended in a horizontal position. 
The palms of the hands are downward and the 
fingers are bent. They grasp your hands, which 
are likewise extended, but have the palms upper- 
most. You give your child's arms a movement 
which somewhat resembles that made in mowing 
grass. This movement exercises the elbow joint, 
and increases the child's power to stand in an up- 
right position. 

Nothing is more dangerous to the health of 
the intellect, nothing is more prejudicial to the 
culture of the heart, than the habit of looking at 
particular objects and events in detachment from 
the great whole of life. I admit that it is often 
necessary to ignore the connection between dif- 
ferent objects and acts. When your child, for 
example, tells you he is hungry, you must often 
9 105 



106 MOTHER PLAY. 

simply send him to the cook for a roll or to the 
baker for a bun. You should, however, correct 
the tendency to which this manner of satisfying 
his wants gives rise by making perceptible to 
him as often as possible the series of conditions 
which must be fulfilled before it is possible to say 
to him, " Run to this or that person and get such 
or such things." You may achieve this result by 
making a judicious choice of pictures representing 
the activities of farm, garden, and trade, by show- 
ing them in their natural and logical order, and 
by connecting with them short and graphic sto- 
ries of the life they portray. Doubtless this idea 
has already occurred to you, and you have in 
some measure worked it out. With your per- 
mission we will hereafter look through a selection 
of pictures and mature the scheme. 

Through the little play of Mowing Grass, 
which I now offer to you, together with the illus- 
tration which accompanies it, you may easily 
lead your child to feel that for his bread and milk 
he owes thanks not only to his mother, the milk- 
maid, the cow, the mower, and the baker, but also 
and most of all to the heavenly Father, who 
through the instrumentalities of dew and rain, 
sunshine and darkness, winter and summer, causes 
the earth to bring forth grass and herb to nour- 
ish the cattle whose milk and whose flesh nour- 
ish man. He will understand you the more 
readily if, catching a hint from the little boy in 
the picture, you encourage him to share the life 
of his elders by imitating their activities. As 
he grows older you should let him plant his own 



MOWING GRASS. 107 

garden, gather his own harvest of fruit and flow- 
ers, learn through his own small experience some- 
thing of the influence of sun, dew, and rain, and 
gain thereby a remote presentiment of the recip- 
rocal energies of nature and a reverent feeling 
for the divine life and law expressed in nature. 

The two children in the picture who sit oppo- 
site to each other weaving dandelion chains ex- 
pect to join these chains in one connected whole. 
They know that if they work quietly and steadi- 
ly, joining link to link, the chains must at last 
meet. So is it with the child who by linking even 
a few activities begins to weave the chain of life. 
The very nature of his activity implies a goal, 
and he feels that some day, to his joy, the chain 
shall be rounded into a circle. 

But what says the tree beside which yonder 
little lad is sitting ? Its form and general ap- 
pearance warn us, in language not to be misun- 
derstood, against grafting what is base or false 
upon an originally noble nature. If we neglect 
this warning we must expect stunted growth, 
gnarled branches, bitter fruit. 

And what says the tree against which leans 
the tiny maiden ? Its trunk is like a broken 
shaft. In some way its life impulse has been de- 
stroyed. Beware, O parents, of killing through 
ignorance or thoughtlessness the impulses of 
growth and development in your children. Other- 
wise you will have to grieve over lives which will 
never crown themselves with completeness, but, 
like this blighted tree, will yield wood and foli- 
age but neither blossoms nor fruit. 



IX. 

BECKONING THE CHICKENS. 

Because he lives himself, the child 

Oft thinks that all things live, 
And pours his little heart upon 

That which no love can give. 

But when his life, outreaching, meets 

With answering life around, 
His wistful eyes are lit with joy 

That comrades he has found. 

The picture illustrating this play shows 
clearly the mother's beckoning hand and the 
dear little bent fingers of the baby, who tries 
to imitate what she is doing. That this move- 
ment exercises and strengthens the fingers is 
self-evident. 

This mother has doubtless heard what we 
said to each other as we looked at the picture of 
Mowing Grass. See the child in her arms. No- 
tice his exuberant health and vigour. Notice 
how he keeps his eye fixed upon the turkeys, 
hens, and chickens, and how delightedly he lis- 
tens to their gobbling, clucking, and peeping. 
Surely his mother has taken him out of doors in 
order that he may see in the looking-glass of na- 
ture the fresh, eager life that throbs in his own 
109 



110 MOTHER PLAY. 

pulses, and that through seeing this life outside 
of himself he may feel it more keenly within 
himself. Several groups of children, some of 
whom are her own, have followed the mother. 
Who would not follow where such motherly nur- 
ture leads the way ? What child, especially, could 
resist its charm ? Watch these children. Notice 
the health, the mirth, the thoughtfulness which 
are shown in the expression of their faces and in 
their movements. Look at the three little ones 
yonder on the right where the middle child is 
kneeling. The life of nature works upon them 
like a magnet. It works so powerfully upon the 
vigorous boy that he needs more sharers of his 
joy than the two little girls beside him; so he 
turns to call the three children who are looking 
so intently through the great branches of the 
tree at the picture they frame. But these chil- 
dren do not respond to his call ; they are fasci- 
nated by the beautiful view that lies before 
them. And just see the child on the left! 
Crouched on the ground, she watches intently 
the chicken family, that none of its doings may 
escape her. The elder girl, on the contrary, 
stands erect, and beckons to the hen and rooster ; 
she wants them to come to their chickens. In 
her stir the motherly impulses of watchfulness 
and care. 

Each child has a vision of his own inmost life 
in the mirror of nature. This inmost life gains 
fresh strength through beholding its reflection. 
So, too, the child sees his life in the mirror of his 
mother's eye. 



BECKONING THE CHICKENS. HI 

Surely all these children will grow up in 
strength and beauty like the luxuriant climbing 
vine in our picture, and in their mature years 
they will stand steadfast like the tree under 
whose shade they are now rejoicing in the life of 
nature ! 



X. 

BECKONING THE PIGEONS. 

The mother acts out for her child 
His thoughts unformed and dim. 

He loves the pigeons ; he'll be glad 
To think that they love him. 

What the child has seen out of doors the 
mother repeats for him in her indoor play. Thus 
the game of Beckoning the Pigeons is an indoor 
repetition of the experiences described in my 
commentary on the play Beckoning the Chickens. 

The mother sits by a table; her baby is on 
her lap. Her fingers patter along the table to- 
wards him. These pattering fingers are the little 
pigeons, chickens, or sparrows which he has seen 
running or hopping out of doors. The sympa- 
thetic life in the child moves him to do what he 
sees his mother do, so he, too, tries to make his 
little fingers patter across the table. Through 
his play he exercises his finger joints. So much 
for this game on its external side. 

Life attracts life. The picture preceding this 
one showed nature attracting the life of children ; 
this picture shows how joyful and loving child 
life attracts the life of nature, particularly the 
life of birds. With what trust the pigeons come 
when the child calls ! Running, fluttering, flying, 

113 



114 MOTHER PLAY. 

they hurry towards him from all sides. It would 
almost seem as if children and pigeons had some 
common language, and as if they understood each 
other all the better because they do not under- 
stand our human speech. 

Mother, is there not something analogous to 
this fact in your own experience ? Did not your 
children respond more quickly to your words 
when they were too young to understand the 
meaning of words than they do now when this 
meaning is clear to them ? Why is this ? Must 
the animals teach us ? In their language, word 
and fact, fact and word, word and deed, deed and 
word, are always one and the same. 



XI. 

THE FISH IN THE BROOK. 

A CHILD regards with new delight 
Each living thing that meets his sight; 
But when within the limpid stream 
He sees the tishes dart and gleam, 
Or when, through pure transparent space 
The bird's swift flight he tries to trace, 
Their freer motion tills his heart 
With joy that seems of it a part — 
A joy that speaks diviner birth, 
While yet he treads the ways of earth. 

The child sits upon a table in front of his 
mother, or, it may be, upon her lap. Her left arm 
is thrown gently around him. Keeping her two 
hands parallel, the mother extends them and then 
alternately stretches and bends her fingers to 
imitate the movement of swimming. So much 
for the way of playing this little game. 

Birds and fishes, fishes and birds ; why is it 
that in these the child finds an ever fresh delight ? 
Is it not because they seem to move with such 
perfect freedom, the one in the clear water, the 
other in the pure air ? Unimpeded activity in a 
pure element — this is the magnet which attracts 
the child to bird and fish. Yet the child tries to 
catch fish and bird. Is not this a contradiction ? 
Nay, mother, to me it seems not so. In the bird 

115 



THE FISH IN THE BROOK. 117 

your cliild is trying to catcTi its glad flight, in 
the fish its swimming, skimming, diving, gliding 
movements. But no catching of bird or fish can 
avail him. The fish lies motionless on the grass ; 
holding the bird he loses its flight. Within must 
freedom be won, within must purity be con- 
quered. The soul must create the pure element 
in which it can move freely. Mother, make your 
child's delight in such free self-movement the 
point of departure for stirring in him a con- 
sciousness of this truth, and you will be helping 
him to achieve life's perfect peace, life's holi- 
est joy. 

"Brother, catch me one of the fishes swim- 
ming so merrily in the brook. Look at this 
little one— now it is here, now it is there. Some- 
times it is straight, sometimes it is bent; it is 
so pretty whatever it does. Oh, if I could only 
swim and glide and dip! if I could wriggle 
and slip, how I would tease you, brother, if you 
tried to catch me ! Please, brother, catch me a 
fish." 

" Here is a fish for you, little sister, but hold 
it tight or it will slip away." 

"But, brother, it doesn't move any more; it 
only lies stretched out straight. But it is alive, 
for it gasps. I will lay it on the grass ; then it 
will begin moving again. Oh, it does not move 
even in the grass ; it lies quite straight and still. 
Why won't it move ? " 

" Don't you know, little sister, that fish only 
move in the water ? Look again at the fishes 
in the brook, how merrily they are swimming 



118 MOTHER PLAY. 

about; sometimes they are perfectly straight, 
and then how crooked ! " 

Mother, do you realise how essential it is 
that your child should clearly seize the distinc- 
tion between the crooked and straight, especially 
when these words are used not in a literal but in 
a metaphorical sense ? " He is a straightforward 
man. He follows a straight path. He has an 
upright character."' Who does not rejoice when 
such words may with truth be said of him ? On 
the other hand, who is not mortified when told 
he is walking in crooked paths, or that he is en- 
gaged in a crooked business ? 

This opposition between crooked and straight 
seems to have been in our artist's mind when he 
was designing the picture of the fish in the 
brook. Straight and crooked are the little fishes ; 
straight and crooked flows the water ; straight 
and crooked grows the tree and around the 
straight, slim arum the serpents are coiling. 
Seek to direct your child's attention to the dif- 
ference between what is straight and what is 
crooked. Plant in his heart a love for all that is 
straightforward in thought, word, and deed, and 
a hatred for whatever violates this ideal ; so 
shall the mark of rectitude be upon his life and 
deeds, and, using his developed strength in its 
right element, he will be active, joyful, and free, 
like the fish in the clear brook and the bird in 
the pure air. 



XII. 

THE TARGET. 

However meaningless this game may seem, 

There is within it, more ti\an one would dream, 

As hidden in the uncut gem there lies, 

A rainbow waiting to delight our eyes ; 

In it, things differing and far apart 

Are brought together — Avakening the thought 

Of complex unity— and others still. 

If, to see truth in play, we have the will ; 

But while we search, a child sees all with ease : 

He does not reason, but can quickly seize 

Impressions which, we know not how, are wrought 

Into the forming fibre of his thought; 

And while with pretty earnestness he eyes 

Upon his rosy palm the lines crosswise, 

Ideas are waking in his little brain 

Of number, form, proportion, rightful gain ; 

And larger knowledge, later on, will come 

Into a mind where it will be at home. 

He'll learn proportion's rhythmic power to know — 

A power that seems with growing thought to grow. 

Little by little, he will come to see 

That through activity comes unity. 

And that each one, who in his place and age 

Does wholesome work, should have his proper wage. 

Dimly at first, but clearly by and by. 

He'll see how everything— earth, air, and sky. 

Plants, beasts, and men— are knit in one great whole, 

Interdependent, while the ages roll. 

This lesson, that the world spells out so slow, 

The child may come insensibly to know ; 

And with this lesson taught each opening life, 

Will come at last the end of man's long strife. 

Witli this play we enter upon a new and dis- 
tinct stage of development. As a traditional 

119 




£dn()roctS:^rcu)n>eid. 



„2Bte beutitng^IoS bte3 Spiel 
So liciit tarin bed) stcl, 
Qi iilcid)t bcm rofieit Stein, 
©rfd)cint nics j^arben^Sin, 
9Bie and) 33er|d)ieb'neg gem 
3Bie aud) ©ctrennte^ fern 
Unt) nod) stet Qlnb're^ trau'n? 
giir ben, bcr liebt ju [djau'n 
Die toi) beS ^inbeS Sinn 
Unb ii)W jum ^oc^gcwinn 

2)a§ atte ^ficitigfeit 
Unb ba§ ber Slrteit aud) 
2)a§ nid)td rotUtiil)rlid) fet, 
!J)a§ gbenma§ ticrsor 
3)ied mad)' bem ^inbd)en fd)on 
2)ie^ a^nenb, wirb 'g baS a}Ja§ 



Slud) immcr mog' crfd)cinett, 
SyZebr rtl^ man mijgc nieincn.' 
3)er, wcnn er nun gefd)liffen, 
33om Slug' mil Suft crgrtffen. 
3n S'in'gung fid) lucM finbet; 
3u Sinem fid) serbinbet ; 
Scigt btefeS Spiet crfunbcn 
9Baf)rI)eit, vom Spiel umnjunben ; 
So irunberbar lei^ af)net, 
3)cn 2Beg jum (Sinfcl)'n basnet. — 
3n etnem ®anjen fiif)re, 
gin rtdit'ger Sof)n gebiilire; 
!Die Sad)en fid) bebingen, 
9Iu« SiUcm gcrn witt bringen : 
Unb im ®efiib(, erfaffen ; 
3m Seben ani) nic^t taffen." 



C^Sr??:...^!^.^- 




THE TARGET. 121 

game it is found in some form in every district 
of Germany. It is common to all German dia- 
lects, whether High or Low. It would seem, there- 
fore, that it must meet some essential need of the 
child, and correspond with some plane of his de- 
veloping life. In my judgment, it has also im- 
portant bearings upon his whole career, for it 
opens a path which leads gradually towards the 
life of knowledge and the life of trade. 

The manner of playing this game, mother, is 
doubtless familiar to you. Your child stands or 
sits in front of you. He holds out one of his 
hands towards you, with the palm uppermost. 
With the forefinger of his other hand, or with 
your own forefinger, you draw upon his extended 
palm two lines intersecting each other at right 
angles. At the point of intersection you pretend 
to bore a hole, and finally you lay your free hand 
upon your child's palm. While going through 
these varied movements you sing the song of the 
Target. 

As I have already said, this little play is com- 
mon to all the districts and dialects of Germany. 
What is the reason of its diffusion and popular- 
ity ? I frankly confess that I see in it the earli- 
est traces of an endeavour to attract the child's 
attention to form and position and to the phe- 
nomena necessarily arising from and connected 
with these qualities. The one line is the line of 
length, the other is the line of breadth. Through 
combination the one is accentuated as vertical, 
the other as horizontal. They cut each other 
through their centres, thus forming four equal 
10 



122 MOTHER PLAY. 

and therefore right angles. Both lines with their 
four ends lie on one plane, as is doubly proved by 
the position of the hands. 

But what do I hear you saying ? You do not 
understand one word of all this, and, how then, can 
your child understand it ? You are quite right. 
Your child could not understand a single word of 
what I have said. Some vague idea of the /ads 
which the words express, however, he must have, 
or he would not be so much interested in the 
play. Hence, thoughtful mother, you may assure 
yourself that some recognition of facts precedes 
the understanding of words. If, therefore, you 
wish your instruction to be natural and impres- 
sive, begin by giving concrete experiences. Do 
you ask why this method is impressive and why 
its results are abiding ? I answer : That which 
we have ourselves experienced makes a deep im- 
pression ; for in experience three things are al- 
ways present: the particular fact, its universal 
implication, and the relationship of both to the 
person who has the experience. 

The universal truths implicit in this play of 
the Target relate to form, size, and number, or, in 
other words, to the most characteristic qualities 
of all material objects. Since it directs the child's 
attention to these characteristic, qualities, this 
little game may be said to point towards the 
intellectual mastery of all objects in time and 
space. 

Do you see in the picture three bowmen aim- 
ing their separate arrows at the same mark ? Do 
you see the three little boys going off with the 



THE TARGET. 223 

target, eacli feeling in his heart the same pleas- 
ure ? What is our artist trying to hint to us ? 
Form, size, and number open three paths to a 
single goal. That goal is comprehension of and 
power over the physical world. 




124 



XIII. 

PAT-A-CAKE. 

Surely there is nothing hid 

In this little game, 
That is not quite plainly told 

By its name ? 

Search a moment — you will find 

Something deeper taught; 
In the world's work each must help^ 

As he ought. 

Like the Target, Pat-a-cake is a familiar nurs- 
ery game. It is played not only in Germany 
but in England. It is said to be the only repre- 
sentative in the latter country of the hand and 
finger games of which Germany possesses so rich 
a collection. Its wide diffusion points to the fact 
that simple mother-wit never fails to link the 
initial activities of the child with the everyday 
life about him. 

What the natural mother does incidentally, 
intermittently, and disconnectedly, we must learn 
to do with conscious intent and in logical se- 
quence. We must recognise the reason implicit 
in instinct, learn its methods, and, without losing 
its naivete develop into a systematic procedure 
its incidental suggestions. The human spirit is a 
living unity, and should never be content with a 

125 



126 MOTHER PLAY. 

fragmentary expression of its wholeness. Hence 
" the sweet reasonableness '^ manifested in the 
simple intercourse between mother and child 
must not be suffered to remain forever a blind 
impulse. It must unfold, on the one side, into 
conscious and spiritual motherhood, and, on the 
other, into that ideal childhood whose love and 
yearning and prescient hope testify that it holds 
the " all " in its heart. For the immanence of the 
whole in feeling is the necessary presupposition 
of the penetration of the whole by thought. 

On its external side Pat-a-cake is so well 
known that only a few hints need be given w4th 
regard to the manner of playing it and to its 
physical effects. The child stands or sits in front 
of her who so tenderly cherishes his life. Hold- 
ing his hands in an upright position, with the 
palms touching each other, the mother claps 
them energetically. The physical points of the 
game are the attitude of the whole body, the po- 
sition of the arms, and the exercise of the elbow- 
joint. 

I have already said that this game had its ori- 
gin in an effort to make the impulsive move- 
ments of the infant the means of introducing 
him to a knowledge of the activities about him, 
and to their reciprocal relationships. The bread, 
or, better still, the little cake which the child 
likes so much, he receives from his mother ; the 
mother, in turn, receives it from the baker. So 
far so good. We have found two links in the 
great chain of life and service. Let us beware, 
however, of making the child feel that these links 



PAT-A-CAKE. 127 

complete the chain. The baker can bake no cake 
if the miller grinds no meal ; the miller can grind 
no meal if the farmer brings him no grain ; the 
farmer can bring no grain if his field yields no 
crop ; the field can yield no crop if the forces of 
Nature fail to work together to produce it ; the 
forces of Nature could not conspire together were 
it not for the all-wise and beneficent Power who 
incites and guides them to their predetermined 
ends. 

Doubtless the little children in our picture, 
who are playing "Bake bread, eat bread/^ have 
been taught to feel this inner unity, connected- 
ness, and harmony of life. Do not disturb their 
ingenuous play. Rather avoid noticing it, unless 
your own heart responds to the devout feeling 
which inspires it. These children are not pro- 
faning what is holy ; they are nurturing the im- 
pulse out of which shall spring the consecration 
of secular life. 

How shall your child, either now or hereafter, 
cultivate his sense for what is holy, if you nip 
that budding germ of devotion which seeks child- 
like expression in serious play ?■ Such play, how- 
ever, must be spontaneous, artless, and free from 
all attempts at show. Beware, therefore, of any 
look or word that may destroy the simplicity of 
an action which originally springs unsummoned 
from that holiest of holies, the young child's 
heart. 




128 



XIV. 

THE NEST. 

Ik the pretty picture 
Of the ne!5ted birds 

Baby reads Ms " love- 
Written without words — 

Hears the nestlings calling, 
And his heart calls, too ; 

As they need their mother, 
So his heart needs you. 

The picture illustrating this game shows 
clearly the position of the hands. I need only 
explain that at the beginning of the game the 
thumbs are turned downward and inward, to 
make the eggs in the nest. At the words " The 
eggs are hatched," the tips of the thumbs rise, to 
represent the throats and heads of two little birds. 
At the words "Mother dear, peep!" the thumbs 
move, to show that the little birds are seeking 
their mother. 

It goes without saying that in the first in- 
stance this game is played by the mother or 
nurse, the baby merely looking on. As he de- 
velops, however, the instinct of imitation will 
prompt him to make the nest, eggs, and birds 
himself. 

129 



130 MOTHER PLAY. 

The mother who thoughtfully observes her 
child's life and obediently responds to its mani- 
festations, knows that development is a gradual 
process, and that no great truth can be taught 
in a single lesson. The feeling that all life is 
one life slumbers in the child's soul. Only very 
gradually, however, can this slumbering feeling 
be transfigured into a tvahing consciousness. 
Slowly, through a sympathetic study of Nature 
and of human life, through a growing sense of 
the soul and meaning of all natural facts and of 
all human relationships, and through recreating 
in various forms that external world which is 
but the objective expression of his own inmost 
being, the individual attains to a consciousness 
of the connectedness and unity of life (Lebens- 
zusammenhang und Lebenseinheit) and to a 
vision of the Eternal Fountain of Life. 

Through the play of The Birds' Nest, mother, 
you take a few short steps upon one of the paths 
which lead towards this goal, viz., the path 
which starting from sympathy with Nature, 
runs through study of Nature to comprehension 
of the forces, laws, and inner meaning of Nature. 
You are incited to enter upon this path by your 
feeling that a prophetic sense of the inner connect- 
edness of Nature stirs and dreams in your child's 
heart. You also feel that there is no single 
object in Nature which has more power to lift 
his dreaming presentiment into waking conscious- 
ness than a bird's nest. 

Consider the time when the bird builds her 
nest : it is the early springtime, when all Nature 



THE NEST. 131 

begins to unfold. The warmth of spring and 
summer gives the nestlings an opportunity to 
develop and grow strong, and an increasing 
supply of food keeps even pace with their in- 
creasing need of nourishment. By the time that 
the chilly autumn and frosty winter have come 
the nestlings are so strong that they can seek the 
food they need, and either bear the cold or fly 
away from it. 

Consider, again, the places in which birds build 
their nests. They always choose a spot where 
they can find plenty of food. Near human dwell- 
ings are many flies, gnats, and spiders, so, as our 
picture shows us, sparrows and swallows build 
between the rafters of houses. In the hedge, 
which is so rich in insects, the hedge-sparrow and 
the robin make their homes. The titmouse 
builds in hollow trees where there are plenty of 
worms ; the stork near some spot where frogs 
abound. 

No less important than time and place is the 
style of nest-building. Thus the nest of the finch, 
built between the branches of the apple tree looks 
so much like its bark that it is scarcely possible 
to distinguish one from the other ; and the long- 
tailed titmouse protects her young from danger 
by building a nest which looks like a bundle of 
moss. 

To these and analogous facts with regard to 
the time and place of nest-building, and to that 
wonderful mimicry through which birds insure 
the safety of their nestlings, the child's attention 
should be often and sympathetically directed. 



132 MOTHER PLAY. 

No thing, however, will so tenderly stir his heart 
as the nakedness, softness, and weakness of little 
birds, and to his young imagination all Nature 
will seem to share his wish to shelter and feed 
them. 

"Mother, mother, only see the nest full of 
baby birds which these children have found ! It 
is a good thing that the children have come, for 
the little birds were all by themselves. Their 
father and mother had left them. I am so sorry 
for the poor little things ! " 

" You are mistaken, my darling ; their mother 
has only gone to find some gnats and worms to 
feed her babies. She will soon come back. And 
see, there is the father, sitting near by on the 
bough of the tree. He is watching his babies so 
that nothing may harm them while their mother 
is away. And while the mother seeks food and 
the father keeps watch, the kind, warm sun peeps 
into the nest and takes care of the birdies just 
like the mother herself. Only see how comfort- 
able they are ! 

" In the branches of the tree is another nest. 
There are little birds in it, though you cannot 
see them. Their mother also has gone to seek 
food for her hungry nestlings. As she flies 
about she says to herself, ' If I can only find 
plenty of worms for my babies, how glad I shall 
be!^' 

"Sometimes, darling, I am like this bird- 
mother. I cannot always be close by you ; but 
you must not cry because you do not see me. 
You are my own dear little child, and wherever 



THE NEST. 133 

I may be I am thinking of you. Besides, even 
when I am away from you you are not alone, for 
you have the dear heavenly Father's sunlight. 
But remember, the sunbeams do not like a crying 
child!" 




134 



XV. 

THE FLOWER BASKET. 

"Welcome each small offering 
That a young child's love may bring, 
Though perchance he stint himself 
Of some childish joy or pelf; 
For love grows with being spent. 
But starves in its own plenty pent. 

The position of the hand is clearly shown in 
the drawing. The little finger of the right hand 
is laid upon the index finger of the left, the finger 
tips of the right hand are placed in the angle be- 
tween the thumb and index finger of the left ; in 
this position the palms and fingers form a hemi- 
spherical hollow. Manifestly the relative posi- 
tions of the hands may be reversed. In both 
cases, however, the tips of the thumbs are bent 
outward. The physical object of the game is to 
exercise the hand in bending, and thus increase 
its flexibility. Its spiritual aim is to strengthen 
the invisible cord by which the child is tethered 
to his fellows, and it pursues this aim in the 
simplest and most natural manner by making 
family relationships and affections its point of 
departure. 

"Why are the children so busy gathering 
flowers to fill this pretty basket ? Why is their 
mother cutting the beautiful lilies ? " 

135 



136 MOTHER PLAY. 

''Let me look at the picture, darling, and I 
will tell you what I think. It must be their dear 
father's birthday. Yes, that is just it. Yonder 
in the summer-house on the hill sits the father, 
and if I see rightly he has a pencil in his hand. 
I am sure he is drawing a pretty picture for his 
children. He wishes to give them a pleasure on 
his birthday. Perhaps he is drawing the hills in 
the early morning light, with the beautiful sun 
rising so quietly. Perhaps it seems to him that 
this still sunrise is something like the life of his 
dear children, or like his own life when he was a 
little child. His youngest daughter seems to have 
something of the same feeling. She cannot wait 
until the large basket is filled with flowers. She 
has filled a little basket all by herself and runs to 
give it to her father. 'Here, dear papa,' she 
says, ' here are some flowers for your birthday. 
Do you like them ? Mother and sister and 
brother have some more flowers for you, and oh, 
such pretty ones ! ' 

" ' Why, my darling,' says her father, ' your 
little flowers are beautiful, too. They are so 
fresh and pure. How glad they make me ! How 
glad everything makes me to-day ! ' " 

" Mother, why is the father so glad ? " 

" My child, he is glad because the sun shines 
kindly, because the sky is so blue, because the air 
is so mild, because the birds are singing and 
twittering so merrily, because the field is so gay 
with flowers and so sparkling with dew. Even 
the old tower yonder in the wood looks as if it 
was trying to say 'Good-morning' and 'Happy 



THE FLOWER BASKET. I37 

birthday/ All these things help to make the 
father glad ; but he is telling his little girl that 
they could not make him happy if he had no 
sAveet daughter, and she had no sister and no 
brother/^ 

"And no dear, good mother. The father is 
sure to say that, too.^' 

" Yes, of course he is saying that, too ; for he 
loves the mother, and he knows how dearly she 
loves him, and all her little children. And what 
else do you think he is saying ? ' Do you know, 
darling,' he asks, ^who I must thank for all 
these good things ? ' The little girl thinks to her- 
self: *^ Father ought to have everything that is 
good, because he is so good himself.' But the 
father says : ^ I must thank God who gave me life, 
God who gives life to all, God who is the Father 
of all. He gives me the many good things which 
make me so happy to-day. When mother and 
sister and brother come we will thank him to- 
gether.' * 

" This is what the father is saying to his little 
daughter. Shall you and I thank God, too ? " 

" Mother, when is my father's birthday ? " 

* Here Froebel inserts some rhymes, of which Miss Lord 
gives the following translation : 

" Just as the birds all thankful sing, 
As larks poise high on fluttering wing, 
As swallows praise Him in their flight, 
And flowers bloom towards the light ; 
And, in the lovely early dawn 
A happy smile is on the lawn. 
All things with a shout and song 
Give forth thanks most glad and strong." 
11 




las 



XVI. 

THE PIGEON HOUSE. 

A GAME TO EXERCISE ARMS, HANDS, AND FINGERS. 

Children ever are projecting 

Into play tlie life within, 
Like a magic lantern throwing 

Pictures on the waiting screen. 

Glad outgoing, sweet home-coming, 

In this little game they see ; 
At the real home-comings, mother, 

Gather them about your knee ; 

Ask them of each sight and happening 

In the quiet twilight hour ; 
Help them weave it all together 

Like a garland, flower to flower. 

With the years, the larger knowledge 
Of life's wholeness then will come, 

And its twilight hour will find them 
With themselves and God at home. 

The position of the hands is shown with toler- 
able clearness in the drawing. The left arm is 
vertical and represents a pole ; the hands so joined 
as to suggest a quadrangular form make the 
pigeon house. The fingers of the right hand are 
extended and bent to show the opening and clos- 
ing of the pigeon-house door. By various other 
movements they represent the pigeons. In order 

139 



140 MOTHER PLAY. 

to exercise and develop both arms equally, the 
right arm may sometimes make the pole on which 
the pigeon house is set, while the fingers of the 
left hand represent the opening and closing door 
and the flying pigeons. 

The baby is delighted to watch his mother 
play the Pigeon House. When he is old enough 
to play it himself it gives him still greater joy. 
The source of this JQy is that the game helps 
him " to stretch his own little life " so that it 
may include something of the great life of Na- 
ture. The yearning to inhale the life of Nature 
awakens early in the human soul. The young 
child loves to take it in with long, deep breaths. 
Hence he longs to be out of doors, and especially 
to watch the quick, free movements of birds and 
animals. Mother, cherish this longing, and, when- 
ever possible, give your child that intimacy with 
Nature which he craves ; but do not imagine that 
his craving can be stilled by any merely external 
experience. His soul seeks the soul of things. 
His spirit strives, however unconsciously, to pene- 
trate the phenomenal and transitory ; to find the 
absolute and abiding ; to recognise in the particu- 
lar a deep-lying universal ; to discern unity and 
community in what appears detached and soli- 
tary. As child of man, or, in other words, as a 
particular incarnation of generic humanity, as 
" child of God," a single vital spark of the divine 
flame, he seeks and must ever seek Unity, the 
Being that is One in and for itself — God. Foster 
this effort of the soul, and make your child aware 
of it as a moving impulse even while its source 



THE PIGEON HOUSE. 141 

and meaning are still incomprehensible to him. 
Dare not to say to yourself that such spiritual 
nurture may be given too early. Too early ! Do 
you know when, where, and how spiritual life 
begins ? Can you trace the boundary line be- 
tween its being and its non-being ? In God's 
world, just because it is God^s world, all things 
develop in unbroken continuity. Therefore re- 
vere the impulse which stirs within you to fan 
the first faint sparks of spiritual life. So doing, 
the impulse itself will grow strong and clear, and 
what you bear in your heart will manifest itself 
increasingly in your life. 

It is never too early to begin the nurture of 
spiritual life. Such nurture may, however, be 
begun in a wrong way. The mistake lies not in 
the " when '' but in the " how.'' Your baby must 
learn to step before he can learn to run ; he must 
learn to stand before he can learn to step ; he 
must strengthen and develop his legs, and indeed 
his whole body, before with ease and pleasure he 
can learn to stand. If you force him to stand 
and walk too soon he will have weak bowlegs ; 
if you keep him too long from walking and stand- 
ing he will be stiff, clumsy, and awkward. In 
the law of physical evolution you may read the 
law of spiritual evolution. Force a premature 
development of spiritual life and it will be weak 
and distorted ; retard it unduly and it will lack 
freedom, expansiveness, and grace. How many 
men and women do we, all of us, know who are 
going through life with dispositions as deformed 
as the child's bowlegs ? How many do we know 



14:2 MOTHER PLAY. 

whose souls are wholly unfledged, or have at best 
mere rudimentary wings ? Mother, mother, never 
forget the interdependence of all the separate 
stages of life ; rear your child in harmony with 
the universal laws of continuity and degree, and 
adopt as j^our motto the words, "The earthly 
destiny of man is to make his own life a whole, 
and to understand the wholeness of all Hie." 

But we must not forget our Pigeon House nor 
the simple law of life which it illustrates. This 
law seems to be alive in the heart of the mother. 
It is also stirring in the pulses of every child in 
the picture. The healthy, active, gleeful baby 
sitting so securely in his mother's arms never 
once turns away his glance from the pigeons on 
the ground ; he seems to be trying to catch them 
with his eyes that he may take them home with 
him. The little boy in front of the mother stands 
motionless, his enchanted gaze fixed upon a tit- 
mouse who is sitting on a tree near by. From 
this tree a rotten branch has been cut, and in its 
hollow stump the titmouse has made her home. 
She longs to slip into the hole where her babies 
are waiting for her ; yet, in order not to betray 
them, she sits with head averted from her 
nest. The little boy is so interested in watching 
her that he forgets the apple in his hand and 
comes near dropping it. He is afraid of startling 
the bird, and whispers so gently that he can 
scarcely be heard : " Mother, look at the tree yon- 
der ; do you see where the bough has been cut 
away ? do you see a little hole ? I think there is 
a nest in it." His sympathetic mother begins to 



THE PIGEON HOUSE. 143 

walk more slowly and softly, and turns her glance 
towards the anxious little mother bird. 

The two children who are coming home from 
a walk must have seen something of real impor- 
tance to their own lives, for they are evidently 
completely absorbed in what they are saying to 
each other about it. 

On the right of our picture sits a mother talk- 
ing with her little son. Let us listen to their 
conversation. 

" Tell me, dear, where you have been." 

" In the yard, in the garden, in the field, in 
the meadow, at the pond, by the brook. '^ 

"And what beautiful things did my darling 
see ? " 

" Pigeons and chickens ; geese and ducks ; 
swallows and sparrows ; larks and finches ; ra- 
vens, magpies, water wagtails and titmice ; bees, 
beetles, butterflies, and humble-bees." 

" Where did you see the pigeons and chick- 
ens?" 

" In the yard, mother ; they were picking up 
grains of wheat and eating them. How fast the 
little chickens ran whenever they found anything 
to eat, or when the old rooster called to them 
that he had found something ! The pigeons could 
not run so fast as the chickens; neither could 
the ravens I saw in the field. One raven ran 
almost as a pigeon runs, and the black pigeon 
when it was running looked like a raven. But 
how the ravens and magpies could hop! So 
could the water wagtails and the sparrows. It is 
such fun to see them hopping about on their little 



144 MOTHER PLAY. 

stiff legs ! Oh, mother, you must go with me to 
the fields some day and let me show them to you. 
And the geese and ducks, how they swim and 
dive ! They can fly, too, for they flew straight 
over my head and away to the pond. How they 
frightened me ! '' 

"Why shouldn't they fly, my child? They 
are birds, just like the pigeons and chickens, the 
swallows and sparrows, the finches and the 
larks.'' 

"Mother, are pigeons and hens birds ?" 

" My child, haven't they feathers, haven't they 
wings, haven't they two legs, as all other birds 
have?" 

" But pigeons live in the pigeon house, and 
chickens don't fly ! " 

" Chickens have only forgotten how to fly be- 
cause they fly so little. If we wish not to forget 
a thing we must always keep on doing it. As for 
the pigeons, why shouldn't they live in the pigeon 
house ? Sparrows and swallows are birds, and 
they live in houses and under roofs." 

" Mother, are bees and beetles and butterflies 
birds, too ? They have wings, and can fly much 
higher than chickens and ducks." 

"Yes, they can fly, but they have no feathers 
and build no little nests. Besides, there are 
many things birds have which bees and butter- 
flies have not. They are animals, for they can 
move as they wish. They also have some- 
thing which birds have not. Look at this beetle, 
and then at this little ^j. See, they have a 
notch here, and another there. We call these 



THE PIGEON HOUSE. 145 

notches sections, and the little notched creatures 
insects." * 

" Mother, when I again go out of doors you 
must go with me.'' 

" I cannot promise to go with you, my darling, 
for I have much to do. I must put the house in 
order, cook you something to eat, and make you 
some little clothes. Out of doors everything is 
in beautiful order ; each thing has its own place, 
each has its own work, which it does with joy. 
It seems to me I can hear the dear God who made 
this beautiful, orderly world saying to me, 
'Wife, mother, in your little home everything 
must be in order, and every person in the house 
must do his work at the right time.' But this is 
not all he says to me. He tells me that every 
person in the whole world must find his right 
place, and do his right work at the right time. 
He tells me that while my child is still young and 
small he may flutter about, exercising his strength 
as birds exercise tlieir wings. After a while he 
must be like the firmly rooted apple tree, so that 
his life may bear healthy fruit. But be sure, 
dear, when you go out of doors to see all you can, 
so that you may have much to tell me when you 
come home." 

"Mother, to-morrow I am going again to the 
fields. When I come home I shall have new 
things to tell you, and you will explain to me 
again what the dear God is saying." 

* I borrow this translation of Key-ben and Kerbthiere from 
Miss Lord. 



146 MOTHER PLAY. 

Postscript — Teacliing and learning go on all 
through man's life. The oldest teacher has much 
to learn, and must always be ready to let himself 
be taught by animals, trees, and stones, as well as 
by men. Here is a lesson I have learned lately 
from the pigeons : While making a round of visits, 
I spent some days with a friend who was a great 
pigeon fancier. My room was near the pigeon 
house and I often heard the birds talking to- 
gether, particularly when they had been off for a 
flight. This experience led to the following ad- 
dition to my pigeon song : 

And when they get home you will hear thera say, 
" ' How happy we were out of doors to-day — 
Coo-coo ! coo-coo ! coo-coo I ' " 

The children were pleased to think that the 
pigeons told each other about their merry flights, 
and were the more ready to tell all they had them- 
selves seen and heard when out of doors. 

Mother, a story told at the right time is a 
looking-glass for the mind." 



XVII. 
NAMING THE FINGERS. 

Count your baby's rosy fingers, 

Name them for him, one by one ; 
Teach liim how to use them deftly, 

Ere the dimples are all gone ; 
So, still gaining skill with service, 

All he does will be well done. 

Everybody knows how to count on the fingers, 
and how to hold the hand while so doing. The 
position of the hand is also shown clearly in the 
picture. It is necessary, however, to say a few 
words with regard to the significance of this little 
play. 

The traditional counting games, so well known 
in every nursery, seemed to me either to be silly 
and meaningless, or to say many things I would 
not willingly have children hear. On the other 
hand, some form of counting game appeared to 
me important from several points of view. These 
points of view I have endeavoured to make clear 
in my little songs and in the mottoes prefixed to 
them. I have also tried to preserve some echo of 
the traditional words. 

Naming the Fingers, the first of my series of 
counting plays, directs the child^s attention to 
the names of his fingers (index finger, middle 

147 




148 



NAMING THE FINGERS. 149 

finger, ring or gold finger, little finger), and sug- 
gests how these names arose. I have not thought 
it necessary to give the genesis of the word 
thumb, which undoubtedly comes from dam, and 
has been applied to the thumb because it seems 
to form a dam or barrier.* Simple connections 
of this kind between word and thing should, 
whenever possible, be pointed out to children. 
By noticing them the mind escapes from super- 
ficiality and forms habits of comparison and 
reflection. 

The artist has intentionally represented the 
fingers of the left hand as women and little girls, 
those of the right hand as men and boys. Is he 
hinting to us the harmony which should exist 
between the intellect and the heart ? If I under- 
stand him aright, he has striven in many ways 
to suggest that high and noble accord, that 
cheerful co-operation so necessary in family life 
and in the larger institutions of civil society and 
state. 

"Look at the mother who is carrying her lit- 
tle daughter on her arm. What is she doing ? " 
" I think she is teaching baby the names of her 
fingers. She is also trying to teach her how to 
use them. She hopes that when baby grows older 
she will be like the two little girls who are busy 
sewing and spinning; like the two children in 
the garden who are planting flowers ; like the 

* Froebel is not reliable in his etymologies. Thumb is from 
a root signifying to grow large or increase, and so means the 
thick finger. — Translator. 



150 MOTHER PLAY. 

sturdy boy wlio is climbing a tree to get them 
some plums/' 

" Mother, may I climb a tree ? " 

" Yes, when you are stronger, and when you 
have learned to keep your balance." 



XVIII. 
THE GREETING. 

Ah, what a wondrous gift of God 

Oiir human bodies are, 
Still serving us from day to day, . 

Both in our work and in our play, 

Without a break or jar ! 

Dear mother, when you see your babe 

Play with his tiny hands. 
As though just learning they were his, 
Eemember, here a lesson is 

For one who understands. 

Oh, help him, as his body grows 

To feel it is God-given, 
So that in all earth's happy ways. 
Through peaceful nights and busy days, 

His life may forecast heaven ! 

The manner of playing this little game is ex- 
plained by song and picture. Its inner meaning 
is disclosed by the motto. It requires, therefore, 
only a few words by way of commentary. 

There is a general and increasing lament over 
the indelicate actions into which little children 
in their blindness are prone to fall ; and, alas ! 
the most cursory observation proves that the 
lament is only too widely justified. Experiences 
of this nature wound the delicacy, destroy the 
modesty, and stain the purity of the soul. What 
shall we do to get rid of this sneaking pestilence 

151 




152 



THE GREETING. 153 

which, poisons all that is noblest in the child, and 
whose taint continues to infect his later life ? 

There is but one means of avoiding wrong 
activity; but rejoice, friends of childhood and 
humanity, for it is a sure preventive. This pre- 
ventive is right activity — an activity as per- 
sistent as it is fit and lawful ; an activity which 
is not of the body alone, nor yet alone of the 
heart or head ; an activity wherein are blended 
body and soul, feeling and thought. 

To capacitate the child for this pure and 
complete activity, we must begin in infancy to 
exercise and discipline hands and fingers. In 
order to avoid vacuity of mind we must make 
this exercise a means of opening to the soul the 
inner life of surrounding objects. To point out 
how this double aim may be accomplished is one 
of the prime objects of my nursery plays. 



12 



XIX. 

THE FAMILY. 

When baby's eyes first open to the light, 
The same dear household faces meet his sight, 

Which, as months change to years, he learns to love. 
Oh, teach him that the dear ones of his home. 
Both now and in the years which are to come, 

Beneath one roof, or wheresoe'er they rove, 
Are one dear family ! — more closely bound 
By love than if by iron girded round. 

If there is one thing which more than any 
other demands to be rightly apprehended and 
reverently cherished it is the life of the family. 
Family life! Family life! Who shall fathom 
thy depths ? Who shall declare thy meaning ? 
How shall I compress into the few words I may 
permit myself any idea of thy sacred import ? 

Thou art the sanctuary of humanity ; thou 
art the temple wherein the flame of divinity is 
kept alive and burning. Let me be frank and 
outspoken. Thou art more than school and 
Church ! Thou art greater than all the institu- 
tions which necessity has called into being for 
the protection of life and property ! Without 
the conscience to which thou givest birth, with- 
out the reflection which thou dost foster, the 
school is but a sterile Q^g — an ^g^ which con- 

155 



156 MOTHER PLAY. 

tains indeed nourishing material but lacks the 
germ of life. Without thee, what are altar and 
temple ? Thou must anoint thy members with 
the oil of consecration. Then shall they seek 
with heart and mind, with love and thought, the 
altar of the one true God, learn with reverence to 
understand his revelation, and with strenuous 
will obey his law. And once more, O family ! thou 
art the security of all institutions, offensive and 
defensive, whose object is to maintain law and 
justice. For he who is reared in a family unhal- 
lowed by the presence of justice and of law tends 
to become a scoffer of the one and a rebel against 
the other. 

Therefore, mother, strive to awaken in the 
soul of your child, even in infancy, some premo- 
nition of the nature of a living whole, and partic- 
ularly some glimpse into the meaning of the 
family whole. So doing you will lay the founda- 
tions for true and vigorous and harmonious life. 
For where wholeness is there is life, or at least 
the germ of life ; where division is, even if it be 
only halfness, there is death, or at least the germ 
of death. 

In picturing the family, the relationships of 
grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, and 
child should be thrown into clear relief. In the 
relationship of his parents to his grandparents 
the child beholds, as in a mirror, his own rela- 
tionship to father and mother. As he stands to 
his father and mother, so they stand to his grand- 
father and grandmother. Conversely, parents 
behold a reflection of their relationship to their 



THE FAMILY. 157 

cMld in the relationship of his grandparents to 
themselves. To apprehend the manifold aspects 
of this double relationship is undoubtedly of the 
highest importance for the inner life and devel- 
opment of the child. Doubtless our artist felt its 
significance, for he shows us repeatedly in his 
picture a living whole of five members, giving us 
hints of it even in the forms of flowers. In con- 
nection with these flowers there seems to have 
hovered before his mind a fancy which it may be 
worth while to mention. Not only all kernel and 
stone fruits, but all plants belonging to the family 
group they represent, accentuate the number five 
in their blossoms. Has the pleasant flavour of 
these fruits anything to do with this pervading 
law ? 



33etm ^aumdjen fat)' id) @{nd. 

„fSieW grofe ^iinft iai 3aMen tjt, 
SRetn ! ber ^IJicnfd) e€ nt(^t ermtgt; 
SBelcbe ^titnft, cr al?net '5 faum, 
©id) ju finben in bcm SRaum. 
Sa, bag rtd)t'(ie 3<iMen 
Sefirt un5 5Red)tee iraMeit, 
£et)rt un0 ©d^lecbtcS mciben, 
©lebt [o c(^te greuben." 




158 



XX. 

NUMBERING THE FINGERS. 

The baby sits upon his mother's knee, 
Repeating after her, 
** With wide-eyed earnestness 

And pretty baby-lisp, his "one — two — three." 

Nor babe nor mother guess 
That tliey have touched tlie key 
Which opens realms of thought wide as eternity I 

For without number, where were form or size, 
Or measure ? lacking which 

All were but chaos here. 
Or Avhere proportion ? which at length doth rise 

Into the higher sphere 
Of thought, to make it wise, 
And fit to measure right and wrong with calm, clear eyes. 

I lay the thumb in its natural position, the 
nail resting against the index finger. As I name 
and count each successive finger I bend it towards 
my extended palm. I am careful not to close the 
fingers over the thumb. When all the fingers 
have been thus bent inward the position of the 
hands suggests quiet and repose. The song and 
picture explain that each finger is a sleeping 
child. 

Rest and sleep are expressed in every detail of 
the picture. The poppies are asleep, so also are 
the five little birds in the tree. But slumber is 

159 



160 MOTHER PLAY. 

only life in repose. In like manner, life and 
meaning slumber in our counting game. With- 
out number, as expressed in rhythm, there could 
be no poem ; without number, as expressed in 
measure and accent, there could be no music. A 
single false count, a single miscalculation, may 
impoverish your whole life. Never shall your 
loss be entirely made good. Only by painful 
effort can it be in part repaired. 

The young child seems to have some inkling 
of the importance of number. Who does not 
know how children love to count ? Who does 
not remember how in his own childhood he de- 
lighted in all forms of counting games ? Let us 
endeavour to freight this impulse with its true 
meaning by directing attention to the manifold 
applications of number, and especially to the re- 
lationships between number and form, as mani- 
fested in the objects of nature. 



XXI. 

THE FINGER PIANO. 

One— two— three— four— five, you sing; 
Baby listens, as you swing 
Back and forth with changing numbers, 
Till at last the music slumbers 
With a folded wing. 

Five — four — three— two — as each tone 
Marks the rhythm— three— two— one ; 
Baby eyes your moving fingers 
With an eager look that lingers 
When the song is done. 

For a something in his heart 
Answers to your simple art; 
And, like silent bells set ringing, 
Makes the little song you're singing 
Seem of him a part. 

All the music which we hear, 
Listening with the outward ear, 
Would be powerless to win us, 
If there lived not deep within us 
Its innate idea. 

All the universe seems set 
To a measure, when we get 
Near enough to hear the beating 
Of its heart, and, by repeating, 
Learn its alphabet. 

Then the soul is often stirred 
With some harmony unheard 
By the ear— all rhythmic motion, 
Blended hues or fair proportion, 
Justify this word. 
161 




„S5?ae has mnt> mit Slut^en net)t, 

greut *u boren l-ass ©emittl). 

2^tele3 to* jum 9J?enfd)en tprtdit, 

^ort '^ tae du§'re Obr au* ntcM ; 

5Ru§t tie§ friib bem ^inbchcn Icbrcn, 

SBiUft Xiu I'ebcn^freub' tl}m meliren." 




lo;i 



THE FINGER PIANO. 163 

In all Nature is no schism — 
When we have received this chrism, 
Flower bells chime for sunny weather, 
And the colours sing together 
In the trembling prism. 



The fingers of the left hand represent the keys 
of a piano. They are slightly bent at the middle 
joint, and thus gain a certain elasticity. The 
fingers of the right hand press npon them as in 
the act of playing on the piano. 

In the commentary to the preceding song I 
alluded to the relationship between number and 
music. Through playing the finger piano the 
child wins from his practical experience some 
remote idea of the relationship of number not 
only to melody and time, but also to that organ- 
isation of movement which we call measure. 

Have you ever reflected upon the important 
bearings of measure, rhythm, and proportion 
upon man's daily life? He who in all things 
obeys the law of measure is a man of tact. Do 
you wish to develop this fine tact in your child ? 
Do you desire that his life shall be a musical and 
harmonious one ? If so, cultivate his love of song 
and his ability to sing. 

A teacher of my acquaintance complains that, 
as compared with the Italians, we Germans lack 
musical ear and have untrained vocal organs. 
She attributes these defects to the fact that we 
give no adequate training in singing either to 
our children or our youth. Through this defect 
in our education we practically close the gates of 
the glad free world of song. 



164: MOTHER PLAY. 

Mother, retrieve this error in the education of 
your dear child. Then, by the influence which 
from song radiates upon his whole life, you will 
perceive with what a jewel you have enriched 
him. Moreover, in cultivating your child's power 
of song you will yourself learn to sing, or at the 
very least to enjoy and appreciate singing. 

Higher and more important than the cultiva- 
tion of man's outer ear is the culture of that 
inner sense of harmony whereby the soul learns 
to perceive sweet accord in soundless things, and 
to discern within itself harmonies and discords. 
The importance of wakening the inner ear to this 
music of the soul can scarcely be exaggerated. 
Learning to hear it within, the child will strive to 
give it outer form and expression ; and even if in 
such effort he is only partially successful, he will 
gain thereby the power to appreciate the more 
successful effort of others. Thus enriching his 
own life by the life of others, he solves the prob- 
lem of development. How else were it possible 
within the quickly fleeting hours of mortal life 
to develop our being in all directions, to fathom 
its depths, scale its heights, measure its bound- 
aries ? What we are, what we would be, we 
must learn to recognise in the mirror of all other 
lives. By the effort of each and the recognition 
of all the divine man is revealed in humanity. 

And now may I say just a word about the 
charming picture which illustrates this play ? 
Mother, try to make your child feel its music. 
The whole picture is melody. Everything in it 
is singing, or listening to song. The swaying 



THE FINGER PIANO. 165 

wheat sings. The lark in its midst listens. The 
fragrance of the convolvulus is sweet music to 
the bees, and they accompany it with their whir- 
ring wings. The many-coloured bird perched 
in the bushy tree above the head of the musician 
has flown near the head of the sound-stream 
in order that not one of its waves may escape 
him. The canary in the cage flutters and twit- 
ters, as if trying to say, " Recognise in least and 
smallest things the great Creator's might." How 
sweetly yonder little brother and sister are play- 
ing ! And how absorbed they are in the music 
they are making ! This is what I call harmony 
of life. The artist could not have pictured it 
more beautifully. The little birds above the 
boy's head have flown as near as possible so that 
they may hear well. The lark, that master of 
song, cannot refrain from joining in the music and 
making its rhythm visible in the movement of his 
wings. Even the dull-eared beetle forsakes the 
leaf he has been nibbling in order to get nearer 
to the music. The colours say, " We, too, must 
take part in the symphony,'^ and their glowing 
and accordant hues make music for the eye. The 
heads of wheat paint themselves with gold. The 
lark takes on the colour of the earth, in order that 
earth's sheltering furrows may protect her from 
capture. The faithful cornflower reflects the 
azure sky. The home-loving bee dons a suit of 
workaday brown. Pink are the cheeks of the 
children, golden brown the boy's curling locks, 
while the flaxen hair of the little girl makes a 
fair setting for her bright blue eyes. Round 



166 MOTHER PLAY. 

them all the atmosphere throws its veil of misty 
blue. Through it streams the golden sunlight, 
that the green of hope may clothe the children of 
earth. The beetle stays his droning flight, and 
lo ! upon his broad back the colours meet as upon 
a painter's palette. 



XXII. 

HAPPY BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 

Dear mother, when the busy day is done, 
And sleeping lies each tired little one, 
Then fold your own hands on a heart at rest, 
And sleep with them upon God's loving breast. 

The love that gave you such a sacred charge 
Is passing tender and exceeding large ! 
Oh, trust it utterly, and it will pour 
Into each crevice of your life its store. 

Then things unworthy shall no more find room, 
And like a sweet contagion in your home 
Your life shall be. A life that's hid in God 
Tells its great secret without spoken word. 

The gesture which accompanies this song is 
perfectly simple. It is shown clearly in the 
drawing. I need only mention that, in conform- 
ity with the idea and evolution of the song, the 
fingers should be very slowly intertwined. 

No phase of the process of nurture is more 
tender, more important, and more difficult than 
the nurture of that hidden life of the heart and 
the prescient imagination out of which proceeds 
all that is highest and holiest in individual man 
and in humanity, and whose perfect blossom is a 
soul at one with God in thought, word, and deed. 

We have already asked ourselves when and 
how this inner life begins. It is like the seed 

167 




168 



HAPP^ BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 169 

which germinates in darkness, and which is 
growing long before its growth is outwardly vis- 
ible. It is like the stars which astronomers tell 
us are shining long before their beams fall upon 
our eyes. 

We cannot catch the first faint breaths of 
spiritual life, and the moment when the tendency 
towards God is born passes silent and unnoticed. 
To nurture this tendency prematurely is like 
exposing a seed too early to nourishing mois- 
ture and developing light. If, on the other 
hand, spiritual nurture is tardy or feeble, the re- 
sult must likewise be a dwarfed or abortive 
growth. 

What, then, shall we do ? Let me answer 
this question by asking another : How does the 
life of the spirit make itself outwardly visible ? 
With what gesture do we associate its birth and 
development ? What act seems to us to be its 
physical analogue ? In a word, do we not, each 
and all of us, connect devout feeling with clasped 
or folded hands ? 

And yet, what possible correspondence can 
there be between folded hands and the inner 
life ? Is not this gesture merely accidental or 
conventional ? How can that which is accidental 
or conventional have any necessary connection 
with man^s inner life ? 

Between the inner life and its outward ex- 
pression the connection must be a necessary one, 
and if this be so we should be able to discover 
some common characteristic. What, then, is the 
quality common to the devout mind and the 
13 



170 MOTHER PLAY. 

folded hands ? I answer, " It is collectedness, 
the gathering together of the forces of life/' 
The folding of the hands is therefore no acci- 
dental phenomenon. It is the outward and visi- 
ble sign of an inward collectedness, and, as such, 
is rooted in the depths of the universal heart. 
Much might be said on this subject were it per- 
missible for me to discuss it in more detail. But 
enough ! 

Recognising the correspondence between the 
two orders of life, we may mark the moment 
when the soul begins to collect her force and 
thus win a point of departure for the culture of 
spiritual life. For who has not noticed that at a 
certain period of development little children love 
to fold their hands, and that when they do this 
of themselves their attitude and expression prove 
that out of disjointed fragments of feeling, 
thought, and will, they have gathered themselves 
together in a living unity. We need have no 
fear that a tender nurture of this collectedness 
will prove injurious, for without collectedness the 
soul can neither strengthen nor unfold her powers. 

In the conviction I have expressed is rooted 
the song we are now considering. The motto 
accompanying it points out that the mother must 
possess in herself the inner unity of life which she 
would cherish in her child. 

In calling the fingers children, and not only 
children, but brothers and sisters, we simply 
take a forward step upon an already broken 
path. We should also by this time be familiar 
with the thought that children love to see their 



HAPPY BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 171 

own inner life mirrored in a life which, is alien 
to them. To behold these reflections is a help 
always, a hindrance never, to the growth of the 
soul. 

Therefore, when your darling shows you that 
he has reached the requisite plane of develop- 
ment, let him look quietly at the sweet faces of 
the children in this picture and at their devout 
and gentle mother. 



^,^f^> 




172 



XXIII. 

THE CHILDREN ON THE TOWER. 

A CHILD at play we think a pretty sight ; 
A band of playmates gives us more delight. 
The child may love a blossom, red or white, 
But more a wreath in which all hues unite. 

And so, dear mother, weave these little plays 
Which have beguiled your baby's happy days. 
Many in one he sees ; and through the maze 
Of his young mind a great truth sends its rays. 

That this play is a grouping together of all 
the games which precede it is suggested in the 
motto. In the beginning of the game the hands 
are held apart ; at the w^ords, " A- visiting now 
they come/' they are clapped together. The song 
itself, taken in connection with those which pre- 
cede it, will suggest all other requisite positions 
and gestures. 

The position of the hands and fingers, repre- 
senting the grandmothers going into the church, 
and the gesture expressive of thanks, may both 
be seen in the illustration which accompanies 
this song. The gesture of prayer is well known. 
Nevertheless, I have thought it well to picture it 
in the illustration to the song of " Happy Broth- 
ers and Sisters." 

The four divisions of the picture which illus- 
trates the play now under consideration interpret 
173 



174 MOTHER PLAY. 

themselves, and you will have no difficulty in 
explaining them to your questioning child. The 
group in the lower left-hand picture shows the 
visiting fingers. Each group of children is led 
by a grandmother. The lower right-hand pic- 
ture shows the children chatting together about 
the flower basket, the bird's nest, the. egg, the 
pigeon house, the ball. The grandmothers sit- 
ting quietly on a balcony rejoice in the happy 
play of the children. In the third picture the 
two grandmothers are going to church, and the 
children are climbing or preparing to climb the 
tower. The fourth picture shows the fallen 
tower, while from the church emerge unharmed 
and grateful the grandmothers and all the little 
children. 

Studying this play and picture you will learn 
much which will be helpful to you in your 
efforts to cherish the inner life of your child. 
Such suggestions, however, spring so easily and 
naturally from the play itself, and from a con- 
sideration of its relationship to all preceding 
plays, that further comments would merely cramp 
and fetter you. 



Note. — With the Children on the Tower ends what 
may be called Part I of the Mother Play. It is a review 
g-ame wherein preceding plays are brought together, and 
the heart of the child is stirred with some faint premo- 
nition of his own life as a process of becoming. The 
games which follow it respond to an ever-increasing 
consciousness of self and an ever-deepening sense of 
social relationship. 

Each of these main divisions of the Mother Play is 
again divided into two parts. In the first division the 
break is marked by the game of The Target ; in the sec- 
ond, by the game of The Knights and the Good Child. 
For an explanation of the inner significance of these 
transitions, see my book on Symbolic Education, pages 
157-163. 

175 




176 



XXIV. 

THE CHILD AND THE MOON. 

This song requires no interpretation. What 
mother is ignorant of the attraction of the moon 
for the child ? What mother does not know 
that this attraction is so great that it often ren- 
ders him insensible to pain ? 

As the child is drawn by the moon, so in 
maturer years our souls are drawn by spiritual 
light. As the sight of the moon stills the child's 
pain, so the vision of the heavenly light makes 
man oblivious of all earthly ills. 

This little song is intended simply to illustrate 
to you how you may make the moon's attraction 
a point of departure for the development of that 
spiritual attraction of which it is but the van- 
ishing symbol. 

177 



!5>cr fUine Snahe unb bee 
'JOTonb. 



iirum fdifincn 

SfJaunie U'ru. 
Slnfoncitf aicM tern flcmen i?tnb 

Id iniUii nab ? — 
arum wiinfdU, erfel)nt iat 

Aleine wcM fo c\cru, 
J)a§ bae ?^crue jur SBeretn'c^un^ 

tccire ba ? 
aBa« mac^, SJJittter, un6 ttoM bteg 

som ^tnbe lebrcn ?— 
2)a§ »tr (ctu Sntfattcn fcrfccrn 

unX) nidU fibrcn. 
3)a§, cb' ftd) tic T\n([C tr. bent 

gjiutmc inn ibm wintcu, 
di bte (Sin\iun(i MiMfAen ftc^ 

unb il)nen inoge finbcn." 




178 



XXV. 

THE LITTLE BOY AND THE MOON. 

Why does the white moon, floating far 

In distant realms of blue, 
And shedding thence its lustre mild, 
Seem so mtich nearer to your child 

Than e'er it seems to you ? 

It is not that he sees amiss, 

Or that your eyes are dim : . 

Herein a higher truth is taught— 
Make it a part of your own thought, 

Then give it back to him ! 

. He stretches now a baby hand 

To grasp the heavenly light ■ 

Oh, may no barrier ever rise 
To make him with the years less wise, 
Or dim his longing sight ! 

Then hasten not to break the spell 

Which holds him in sweet thrall ; 
Translate it rather, that it seem 
In years to cume no childish dream 

To be at one with all ! 

This song was suggested by an incident from 
real life. The motto explains the symbolic im- 
port of a phenomenon which is recurrent in child," 
and especially in boy, life. We too often ignore 
the child's wonder at the moon and the starry 
heavens. Hence it collapses into formless and 
empty astonishment. We should recognise in 

179 



180 MOTHER PLAY. 

such, wonder a question asked by the soul, 
and should so answer it as to prepare the child 
for a true apperception of the heavenly bodies. 
Thus it is easy to direct the attention of even 
very young children to the way in which the 
moon seems to swim through the clouds, and to 
her often clearly perceptible spherical form. 

The wonder of the soul in presence of the 
heavenly lights also opens for us a path over 
which we may guide the child towards some 
inner apprehension of the being of their Creator. 
In an age when all detached and outward phe- 
nomena are instinctively grasped in identity with 
an inner and unifying life, it is easy to direct im- 
agination from the heavens to Him whose glory 
they declare. A hint as to the method of doing 
this will, however, be given in our next song. 

Confronted by objects whose nature he is not 
able to apprehend, the child accepts with simple 
faith the explanations of his elders. Whether 
such explanations be true or false he believes 
them with equal ease, and this is especially the 
case when they are connected with and seemingly 
verified by his own perceptions. Hence, by false 
explanations the child may be led to conceive the 
moon as a man and the stars as gold pins or 
burning lamps. On the other hand, by means of 
true though necessarily partial explanations, he 
may recognise in the former a beautiful, shining, 
swimming ball, and in the latter great blazing 
suns which look so tiny only because they are so 
far off. 

The one way of looking at moon and stars de- 



THE LITTLE BOY AND THE MOON. 181 

spite its apparent life is barren and lifeless ; tlie 
other bears within it a seed of thought which 
may later develop into rational insight. Why 
should we withhold from the child the living and 
life-giving explanation and weigh him down 
with a dead one ? Truth is harmful never ; error 
is harmful always, even though, it may some- 
times lead to the truth. 




183 



XXVI. 

THE LITTLE MAIDEN AND THE STARS. 

The younsT child loves iu phantasy to see 
Human relationships in star or tree, 
Or anything that may about him be. 

Nature and life around him seem a glass, 

To mirror that which fills his heart. Alas, 

That with the years the childish dream should pass I 

But break it not, until its hidden thought 
Into more lasting meaning has been caught. 
Once gone, with pain and tears it must be bought. 

All that is noble in your child is stirred, 
And every energy to action spurred 
By Nature's silent, oft-repeated word. 

He sees the moon glide on her silver way ; 
He sees the stars return with closing day ; 
He sees each plant some hidden law obey. 

No wonder that he thinks an inner spring 
Of love creative lives in everything, 
And bids it to his life an oftering bring. 

And as the bright unbroken chain returns 

In beauty on itself, his spirit yearns 

Towards that great love which dimly he discerns. 

A child's conceit? Nay, larger truth indeed. 
Which shall sustain him in his later need— 
A faith too deep for any written creed. 

Like its predecessor, this song was suggested 
by an actual occurrence. Two bright planets 
were in near conjunction. A little two-year- 

183 



184 MOTHER PLAY. 

old girl, looking at them, exclaimed with, joy, 
" Father-and-motlier stars ! " 

We all know the tendency of childhood to im- 
pute to inanimate objects human life and human 
relationships. The incident just recorded is, 
however, a striking illustration of this tendency, 
for no one knew how the little girl had fallen 
upon the comparison and connection of ideas 
which her cry implied. 

Thus much is sure: the inner life of child- 
hood may be deepened and strengthened by 
cherishing the impulse to impute personal life 
to inanimate objects. Loyally obeying the hint 
thrown out by the soul, we may aid its struggle 
towards the insight that it is one spirit which 
lives in all and works through all. 



XXVII. 

THE LIGHT-BIRD. 

We most do own what we own not, 

But which is free to all. 
The sunset light upon tJie sea, 
A passing strain of melody, 

Are ours beyond recall. 

The soul has many capacities, yet it is a single 
and indivisible unit. The child's first knowledge 
is a knowledge of his own being as an undifferen- 
tiated totality. It is of the utmost importance to 
his inner and outer development — and, indeed, to 
the whole course of his life — that his feeling of 
the unity of his being should be a strong and 
living one before he descends into the conscious- 
ness and culture of specific powers. The mani- 
festations of infancy prove beyond dispute that 
the order of development is from the universal 
to the particular, and that all distinctions in 
thought and feeling arise through a process of 
specification. 

How different are the motor activities from 
the activities of sense, yet how each reacts upon 
the other ! Each one of our little plays has shown 
us either the recoil of movement upon sensation 
or the recoil of sensation upon movement. ' Even 
our very simple Play with the Limbs incited to 
14 185 




186 



THE LIGHT-BIRD. 187 

activity the sense of siglit, while conversely we 
learned from the song of The Boy and the Moon 
how the sensation of sight reacts upon the ac- 
tivit}^ of body and limbs. 

Not only is there a reaction between motor 
activity and the energy of sense, but the activity 
of one sense excites the activity of the other 
senses. The reaction of hearing upon sight will 
be evident to any one who will notice how much 
more strongly visible things appeal to the child 
when interpreted by word and tone. Hence the 
instinctive mother always links object and word, 
and clothes the word with a garment of song. 
On the other hand, vision reacts upon and incites 
to activity the organ of hearing. The original 
implicit unity of the different senses is further 
shown by the fact that what the baby sees and 
feels he also tries to taste, and everything his 
hands can grasp is promptly carried to his 
mouth. 

Very early in the development of the child, 
however, the sense of sight asserts its supremacy. 
Sight is the regnant sense. It tests and orders 
the results of all the other senses. In the sense 
of sight the nature of man as a seer and discerner 
is symbolically declared. Hence you say to your 
child, " Through your dear eyes, my darling, I can 
look into your soul.'' Hence also we demand of 
children that they shall use their eyes aright. 
We bid them "look before and around them." 
We chide them for seeing and hearing nothing. 
Rising to higher analogies, we speak of the 
"healthy eye,'' and of the single eye through 



18g MOTHER PLAY. • 

whicli the whole body is full of light. Ponder 
even these few examples of the connection be- 
tween physical and spiritual seeing, and you will 
begin to realise that a wise culture of the sense 
of sight is of paramount importance to the outer 
and inner welfare of your child ; that it is indeed 
the axis about which revolve the energies of 
mind — the fountain source of spiritual experience, 
the very nucleus of the embryonic life of the 
soul. 

With the recognition of this truth, dear 
mother, we penetrate to the heart of our com- 
mon endeavour ; we find the core of our in- 
most thought ; we touch the ultimate presuppo- 
sition of all the songs and plays in this little 
book. We desire for the child a serene and un- 
impeded development. Our ideal demands, on 
the one hand, that he shall exert with tranquil 
power all the specific energies of his soul, and, on 
the other, that he shall preserve intact his central 
consciousness of the unity of his selfhood. We 
can be satisfied neither with thought divorced 
from feeling, nor with any feelings save such as 
imply an inner though perchance unconscious 
collected ness of thought. Our heart's desire for 
the child is, that in the deepest and most inclu- 
sive sense of the word he may become a seeing 
being. We know that such seeing does not ex- 
clude, but include, feeling ; for seeing and feeling 
are related to each other, as light and heat. God 
is at once light and love ; or, rather, he is love, 
because he is light, and light because he is love. 
Vision of the whole implies love for the whole. 



THE LIGHT-BIRD. ;(g9 

and this loving omniscience, or omniscient love, 
is our highest definition of the eternal and over- 
ruling life of God. 

Let us therefore follow with confidence the 
path we have been treading ; but let our future 
steps be taken with clearer eyes, with deeper in- 
sight, with fuller consecration of soul ; for we 
know now that over this same path we may 
travel safely through the whole wide realm of 
child culture. We are sure that we have learned 
how to foster the creative impulse, and how to 
fortify and satisfy all the inmost cravings of the 
soul. 

And now to our little play, with regard to 
which I must not omit to say that I have found 
it in all grades of social life. Moreover, it grew 
up with and in me, for as a small child I saw it 
played by older members of my family, and as I 
grew into boyhood I myself played it to the 
delight of my younger brothers and sisters. 

From the illuminated surface of a mirror we 
throw upon a shaded wall a flash of light. The 
same effect may be produced by using, instead of 
a mirror, the surface of water in a glass or cup. 

The deeper import of The Light-Bird is hinted 
in the song and motto. Beware, however, of the 
thought that the import thus suggested is the 
only one contained in the play. N'ot only The 
Light-Bird but all of the plays which precede and 
follow it have many meanings. Neither must 
it be supposed that the meaning suggested by 
me is, if not the sole, at least the highest one. 
My songs, mottoes, and commentaries are offered 



190 MOTHER PLAY. 

simply witli the hope that they may aid you to 
recognise and hold fast some part of what you 
yourself feel while playing these games, and to 
suggest to you how you may waken correspond- 
ing feelings in your child. 

" Mother, what has the boy in his hand ?" 

" It is a little looking-glass.^' 

" What does he want with it ? '' 

" He wants the sun to shine on it." 

"But why?'' 

" Because when the sun shines on the looking- 
glass it will make a bright spot on the wall, and 
this will please his little brother." 

" Oh, yes ! I see the bright spot. It looks like 
a little bird." 

" The little brother thinks, as you do, that it 
looks like a little bird. I do believe he is trying 
to catch it." 

" Mother, give me a looking-glass ; I want to 
make a light-bird." 

" Here is a cup of water — it will do just as 
well ; but be careful not to brealv it." 

" Mother, see, I can make a bird ! " 

"Why should you not ?" 

" Now, mother, will you make the bird ? I 
want to catch it." 

" Here it is ; catch it, if you can." 

" Oh, mother ! the pretty light-bird won't let 
itself be caught. When I think I have it under 
my hand, it shines on top of it." 

"Yes, the light-bird is just 'shine.' You 
can't catch it. You must not expect to catch 
everything." 



THE LIGHT-BIRD. 191 

"Mother, you can't catcli me! Just try if 
you can." 

"There! I have caught you, darling. You 
must run fast if you don't want to be caught. 
Now let us look again at the picture. Do you 
see the little girl who is playing with her kitten ? 
She has tied a piece of paper to a string, and 
dangles it just within reach of kitty's claws. But 
when kitty tries to catch it she jerks it high in 
the air." 

"Mother, what are these other children 
doing ? " 

" They are trying to catch butterflies. Two of 
the little girls have a net ; another girl tries to 
catch the butterfly with her hand ; and the child 
who is kneeling thinks she can throw her hand- 
kerchief over the lovely flying creature. But 
the butterflies will not let themselves be caught." 

"Mother, I see a little girl standing by the 
wall. What is she doing ? " 

" Look at her carefully. She has raised her- 
self on tiptoe as high as she can. She would like 
to chase butterflies too, but can't get over the 
wall." 

"Mother, the boy can get over the wall, and 
so could I. Why doesn't he get quite over ? " 

" He is watching his brother, who has climbed 
the high ladder you see leaning against the wall. 
He thought he could catch the little swallow he 
saw under the eaves. But the swallow has flown 
away." 

"There are two more little children in the 
picture, mother. One is standing and the other 



192 MOTHER PLAY. 

is sitting. How still they are! They are not 
trying to catch anything." 

" Yes, they, too, want to catch and hold some- 
thing. Can you guess what it is ? " 

" I can't guess what it is, but please tell me." 
" Yonder, across the two little lakes, the sun 
is setting. These children want to catch and 
keep his beautiful golden rays. Do you think 
they can, my son ? " 

" Mother, what are you thinkin g about ? Why, 
the sun is ever so far off — it is away behind the 
hill ; and even if it wasn't so far off, the rays are 
nothing but ' shine ! ' They are just like the light- 
bird." 

" Yet the children catch them and keep them." 
" No, no, mother, they can never do that ! " 
" Yes, dear, they catch them with their eyes 
and they keep them in their hearts. Don't you 
remember how father looked when he said good- 
bye to you the last time he went away on a 
trip ? Don't you remember his loving eyes and 
his dear smile ? You do remember, for you have 
told me all about it lately. Didn't you seem to 
see dear father when you asked me if he would 
soon be home ? " 

" Yes, mother — yes, I see father all the time„ 
Dear, dear father ! " 



XXVIII. 

THE SHADOW RABBIT. 

The mother calls her child to see 
A shadow on the wall. 

What is it? AVhy, a rabbit, dear- 
Mouth, ears and feet, and all 1 



The light may lie in splendour on the wall, 
And yet without man's skill that light is all. 
The light alone no picture can produce ; 
Our hands without it are of little use. 
Together, they can make a picture fine, 
"While baby's eyes with happy wonder shine. 

Now turn we to the lines 'of deeper thought 

With which the baby's picture-show is fraught. 

Let Mm upon the white wall try to throw 

Some shadow whose rude semblance you may know. 

And let him do it often, o'er and o'er, 

Until a thought is born not his before : 

The thought that he creates — and that his will 

Must guide his hand if he would work with skill. 

And Avhen, with pensive love, in years to come. 

His thoughts turn backward to his childhood's home, 

Its scenes so distant trying to recall. 

Perchance he'll see the rabbit on the wall ; 

And to his heart at last will come this word : 

Who would God's comfort find must work with God. 

Even life's shadows beautiful may grow, 

If with Heaven's light we work to make them so. 

Shadow games are everywhere familiar. The 
manner of playing them has, moreover, been so 
snccessfuUy indicated by our artist that no words 

193 




194 



THE SHADOW RABBIT. 195 

of explanation are needed. It goes without say- 
ing that they exercise the sense of sight, and that, 
as they are most easily produced by means of 
artificial light, the best time for playing them is 
in the evening. Under favouring conditions, 
good shadow pictures may, however, be produced 
by using the early morning or late afternoon 
sunlight. Owing to the great variety of their 
forms, positions, and movements, these moving 
shadows never fail to fascinate alike little chil- 
dren and older boys and girls. The latter are 
especially delighted when they can make the 
shadow pictures themselves. 

It is my firm conviction that whatever yields 
the child a pure and persistent pleasure has at its 
root some spiritual truth of the highest import. 
I do not wish to force this conviction upon any 
other person. I am sure it will harm no one who 
freely makes it his own. More than this, I believe 
that its general recognition will result in richly 
blessing the rising generation, and, indeed, the 
whole of humanity. 

What causes the rabbit to appear upon the 

wall ? 

Between the bright light which shines on the 
smooth, white wall is thrust a dark object, and 
straightway appears the form which so delights 
the child. This is the outAvard fact ; what is the 
truth which through this fact is dimly hinted to 
the prophetic mind ? Is it not the creative and 
transforming power of light, that power which 
brings form and colour out of chaos, and makes 
the beauty which gladdens our hearts ? Is it not 



196 MOTHER PLAY. 

more than this — a foreshadowing, perhaps, of the 
spiritual fact that our darkest experiences may 
project themselves in forms that will delight and 
bless, if in our hearts shines the light of God ? 
The sternest crags, the most forbidding chasms, 
are beautiful in the mellow sunshine, while the 
fairest landscape loses all charm, and indeed 
ceases to be, when the light which created it is 
withdrawn. Is it not thus also with our lives ? 
Yesterday, touched by the light of enthusiastic 
emotion, all our relationships seemed beauti- 
ful and blessed ; to-day, when the glow of en- 
thusiasm has faded, they oppress and repulse us. 
Only the conviction that it is the darkness within 
us which makes the darkness without, can restore 
the lost peace of our souls. Be it therefore, O 
mother, your sacred duty to make your darling 
early feel the working both of the outer and 
inner light. Let him see in one the symbol of 
the other, and, tracing light and colour to their 
source in the sun, may ho learn to trace the 
beauty and meaning of his life to their source in 
God. 

The object of this little play is to point out to 
you how you may give your child some revealing 
hint of the working both of natural and spiritual 
light. It gains additional charm when two per- 
sons, with hands of different sizes, represent at 
the same time two rabbits differing in size and 
position. The picture, or rather the group of 
pictures, is self-explanatory. Nevertheless, your 
sympathetic word will add more life and mean- 
ing. 



XXIX. 

WOLF AND WILD-PTG. 

The interest a young child gives 

To every animal that lives, 

Dear mother, is an open door 

Through which unbounded good may pour, 
Filling his mind with knowledge manifold, 
Of Nature's wondrous laws, so new, so old. 

But watch ! lest by this selfsame way 

Into his soul some ill may stray, 

And, while your eyes look other where, 

Make for itself a lodgment there. 
Watch, and with noble thoughts so fill his mind 
That passing evil may no shelter find. 

Picture, song, and motto are reciprocally ex- 
planatory ; lience few words are needed by way 
of commentary. This shadow picture is made 
by laying the hands together, palm against palm 
and finger against finger, and then alternately 
parting and joining them. The thumbs are so 
held as to make shadows somewhat resembling 
ears. It may require practice to produce this 
picture. In our illustration the hands are too 
widely open, therefore the shadow is not correct. 

The lower passions are often conspicuously 
displayed by animals. Hence, if the child's imag- 
ination is to be kept pure and his delicacy of 
feeling unimpaired, his curiosity about animals 

197 




198 



WOLF AND WILD-PIG. 199 

must be hedged and guarded. With children 
whose nerves have been overstimulated, it is par- 
ticularly important to preserve the purity of 
phantasy, and neither to wound nor blunt the 
sense of shame. Even when nothing has occurred 
to make special precaution necessary, it is impor- 
tant to avoid those careless words which waken 
premature curiosity and suspicion. Preserving 
unblemished the purity of his heart, the innocent 
child will be unscathed by the guiltless phenom- 
ena of Nature, easily explaining them to himself 
by the thought that " animals know no better." 

Man, however, is no animal— or, rather, he is 
more than the animal. Man knows what he does, 
or, at least, he should know. Even a child should 
have this knowledge. Therefore, mother, call 
his attention to the fact that in Nature every 
creature conforms to the stage of being it has 
attained, and lives and develops in harmony with 
the demands of its total environment. An illus- 
tration of this harmony was given you in my 
commentary upon The Bird's Nest. Because the 
life of animals is thus adapted to environment 
it is healthy and happy. The same is true of the 
life of plants. Like flower and tree, like beast 
and bird, the human being should respond to his 
environment, and be pliant to the demands of 
each successive stage of development. 

Injudicious interference with the natural pro- 
cess of development cripples the powers and 
retards the progress of the soul. On the other 
hand, each stage of development makes specific 
claims, which it is fatal to disregard. To awaken 




200 



WOLF AND WILD-PIG. 201 

in tlie cliild a lively sense of these claims and a 
desire to meet them, is to fit him for the rounded 
life born of an all-sided fulfilment of duty. 

To each age is confided something which it 
alone can cherish. Hence each age has duties 
from whose performance it may not be released. 
Childhood forms no exception to this general law. 
Happy the child who is led, even though uncon- 
sciously, to act in accordance with its claims. 

Duties are not burdens but privileges. The 
path of duty leads to light and to all the bless- 
ings conferred by light. Therefore, each normal 
and healthy child gladly fulfils duties. Such 
duties, however, must be genuine, clear, definite, 
and, above all, inexorable. 

The fulfilment of duty strengthens body and 
soul. The sense of duty done gives self-reliance. 
Mother! father! observe how happy your child 
is in the performance of duty, and how he seems 
to feel himself therein allied to you. Guard these 
feelings sacredly, for in them are the seeds of 
blessedness. He who wins inner collectedness, 
who views his life as a whole, and who respects 
this wholeness of life in each particular deed, 
shall find at last the " peace which subsists at the 
heart of endless agitation.^' 



15 







SHADOW PICTURES. 



From Theoretisches und Praktisches Handbuch der Froebel- 
schen Erziehungslehre. B. von Mannholz Biilow. Publisher, 
.Georg H. Wigand, Kassel. 

202 




SHADOW PICTURES. 



203 




204 



XXX. 

THE LITTLE WINDOW. 

A LITTLE baby seeks the light 

Not with intelligent intent ; 

It is his native element, 
And heaven-born instinct guides his sight. 

My meaning, mother, can you read ? 
A token this by which we know 
His soul, too, in the light must grov/. 

Oh, may God help you meet this need ! 

205 



XXXI. 

THE WINDOW. 

Sometimes there stirs within a young child's soul 

A dim forecasting, hardly yet a thought, 
Of his place in the Universal Whole. 

Oh, foster it ! Let it not pass for naught ; 
Meet every question. Help him still to see 

And trust the inner 'neath the outward show. 
Teach him that things apart in space may be 

"United in his thought. Help him to know 
That to the heart attent all things may speak. 

So shall he, listening, learn to understand ; 
And all the clinging mists at length shall break, 

And joyfully he'll live as God has planned. 

THE TWO WINDOWS. 

The two Window plays originated in my mind 
as a response to the suggestion thrown out by 
children in their fondness for peeping at light 
through a pinhole, through the opening made 
by laying the slightly parted fingers of one hand 
across the slightly parted fingers of the other 
hand, or through any very small inclosed space. 
I seemed to recognise in this phenomenon a sym- 
bolic import. In order that spiritual light may 
not merely dazzle, it must at first enter the heart 
and mind, as it were, through chinks. Only as 
the spiritual eye gains strength can it bear the 
fuller blaze of truth. 

By studying the pictures which illustrate 
207 



208 MOTHER PLAY. 

these two plays you may easily learn the man- 
ner of playing them. It is self-evident that they 
may be played either by daylight or by lamp- 
light. 

The Window plays are counterparts to the 
Shadow plays. The aim of the Shadow plays is 
to suggest how we may avoid wakening the 
child's lower instincts. The aim of the Window 
plays is to rouse and quicken his sympathy for 
what is high and noble. 

In the commentaries to the Tick-tack and 
the Fishes, I urged you, dear mother, to culti- 
vate in your child a love for all that is clean 
and pure and clear. Let me now entreat you 
to cherish and foster his delight in all that 
is shining, transparent, luminous, and illumi- 
nating. 

Observe the absorption of yonder little chil- 
dren in the beloved phenomena of light. What 
should more quickly attract and more strongly 
rivet the child's attention than that which is 
luminous and illuminating ? He inhales the light 
as he inhales the air. Light is the atmosphere of 
the soul. Parity of heart is the illuminated sum- 
mit of character, which wise men discern and 
wiser men achieve. Mother, exercise your child's 
strength that he may have power to climb this 
height. Father, reach him from above your 
helping hand. 

"Mother, why does the little boy who is 
standing in the window look so serious ? " 

" He IS watching the lovely colours which the 
sunlight makes in the water." 



THE TWO WINDOWS. 209 

" Mother, father, come here ! Come quickly ! 
See, sister has set a glass of clean water in the 
window ! Look at the beautiful bright-coloured 
circles and rays ! They are just like the rainbow 
and the dewdrops. Oh, mother, how pretty they 
are! The colours play with each other when 
sister moves the glass, just as you play ' catch ' 
with us/' 

As the child rejoices in this play of colour, the 
noble man rejoices in that " rainbow flowering " 
of the soul which is the rich reward of a wise and 
tender spiritual nurture. Mother, see to it that 
the youth and maiden enshrine and preserve the 
pure visions of childhood. 

" But why is the little boy crying ? " 

" Oh, dear ! He has carelessly broken the 
bright glass in the window, and now, if he 
doesn't want to shut the light out of the room 
with a board or piece of paper, he must go 
to the glazier, who lives a long way off, and 
ask him to put in a new pane. Sometimes we 
are like this little boy : we do something which 
keeps light from getting into our hearts. Then, 
what a sad time we have in the dark, and how 
much trouble we have to take before we can 
get the light again! But do you see the little 
girl in the picture, who has opened the door 
so that light may get into the dark cellar ? Be 
like her, darling: open all the doors and win- 
dows of your heart to the dear light; then 
everything within will be clear, and everything 
without will be fair. The world will be all 
beautiful to you, as it is to the little boy who 



210 MOTHER PLAY. 

stands in his mother's lap, watching for the 
coming of the sun. The baby the other mother 
has in her arms loves to look at the sun too. 
The little boy who is pointing towards the win- 
dow says to his sister, " Come, let us ask mother 
if .we may go for a while into the garden ; it 
is so lovely out of doors.'' "Yes, children," 
answers the mother, " you may go ; and be sure 
to try to be like the shining, kindly light which 
makes all this loveliness.'^ 



XXXII. 

THE CHARCOAL-BURNER. 

That smallest seeming causes power may wield — 
That firmest matter to man's strength must yield — 
That under aspect mean great good may hide- 
In your child's mind plant these truths side by side. 

The picture shows the position of the hands. 
The wrist rests upon some object (e. g., a table) 
which represents the ground. 

We have recognised the eye as a mediator be- 
tween man's inner being and the spiritual world. 
Conversely, the hand mediates man's inner being 
and the material world. Furthermore, it medi- 
ates the objects of sense-perception and the 
higher forms of thought. This mediatorial func- 
tion of the hand is not confined to mature life. 
It is active and effective even within the narrow 
limits of childish play. 

Man has but two hands and two times four 
fingers. The fingers of each hand correspond 
with those of the other. The two thumbs, set 
opposite to each other, act as a mole or dam to 
the fingers. Such is the instrument with which 
so many things may be done — with which, to the 
delight of the child, so many objects may be 
represented, 

211 




S13 



THE CHARCOAL-BURNER. 213 

By using his hands, the child learns how 
much may be done with the few things within 
his grasp, or, in other words, how much he may 
accomplish without reaching beyond the narrow 
boundaries of his own little life. That English- 
man was perfectly right who wrote a whole book 
to prove that the hand is a witness of God's 
fatherly love and goodness.* Mother, seek to 
form in your child the habit of looking at his 
hand from this point of view, in order that he 
may never injure either it or himself by its mis- 
use, but may through productive and creative 
activity rise into the image of God. 

And as you teach your child to respect his 
own hand, teach him also to respect those who 
work with their hands. Waken his gratitude 
towards, and consideration for, those through 
whose labour he is blessed with food, clothing, 
and shelter. Teach him to honour each "toil- 
worn craftsman,^' however humble his calling, 
who wards off danger from individuals and com- 
munities, and whose labour directly furthers the 
welfare of mankind. 

Without the charcoal burner, where were 
most of our technical arts ? Without his patient 
labour, where were those chemical researches 



* The book to which Froebel refers is presumably The 
Hand: Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as evincing 
Design, and Illustrating the Power. Wisdom, and Goodness of 
God, by Sir Charles Bell. Published as one of the Bridge water 
Treatises, 1832 ; ninth edition, 1874 (George Bell & Sons, Covent 
Garden). (From Miss Lord's note to this commentary.) 



214 MOTHER PLAY. 

which have solved so many of the secrets of 
Nature ? * 



* At the close of his commentary on this game, Froebel sug- 
gests that older children be told how charcoal burners saved 
little German princes from death, or from a captivity worse 
than death. Prom Miss Lord's notes to the Mother Play I 
borrow the following account of the story which Froebel had in 
mind : 

" Frederick, Elector of Saxony, had two sons. Always at 
war, his enemies at length sent Kunz von Kauffingen with other 
soldiers to the Castle of Altenburg, July 7, 1455, to carry the 
two boys away. Kunz went off with Albert, Mosen with Ernest. 
Kunz neared the Bohemian border by noon on July 8th, but, as 
Albert was thirsty, stopped to pick bilberries in the wood. A 
charcoal burner suddenly appeared, and at once guessed this 
was the boy about whom alarm-bells were ringing throughout 
Saxony. He fought Kunz with his long poking pole (Schiir- 
baum) till help came, or, as he expressed it to the Electress, 
when she thanked him, " Hab ihn weidlich getrillt " ; and he is 
called merely "Triller" in the legal documents conveying to 
him and his heirs rights in the Saxon forest for ever. This 
Albert is ancestor of the present Saxon house. Prince Ernest 
was rescued on July 11th. Twelfth in direct descent from him 
was Albert, the late Prince Consort ; the Prince of Wales is thus 
thirteenth. 

" See (brief account) Aunt Charlotte's Stories of German 
History, by Charlotte M. Yonge (Marcus Ward, 1878), p. 182 ; 
(most lively account) Thomas Carlyle (Works) an essay. The 
Prinzenraub: A Glimpse of Saxon History, in the Westminster 
Review, January, 1855." 



XXXIII. 

THE CARPENTER. 

How many things can love invent 

To catch a baby's sight ! 
Now see his mother, with her hands 
Making a carpenter who stands 

Working with all his might. 

In mother's arms is baby's school, 

His books these little plays ; 
Within each one she leads his mind 
The germ of some great thought to find, 

And treasure all his days. 

The successive gestures in this play are dif- 
ficult to describe. They should be seen in order 
to be understood. However, I will explain them 
as clearly as possible. 

The position of the hands, with which the rep- 
resentations begin, resembles that which made the 
charcoal-burner's hut. The hands are, however, 
held more freely. The tips of the little fingers, 
ring fingers, and middle fingers meet. The fore- 
fingers are free. The forefinger of the left hand 
represents a tree. The forefinger of the right 
hand is a woodman. A sawing movement indi- 
cates that he is felling the tree. When this move- 
ment has been made several times the tree is sup- 
posed to have fallen, and the left forefinger is 
held in a horizontal position with its tip touching 
215 




216 



THE CARPENTER. 21T 

the knuckle or base of the right forefinger. The 
now bent forefinger of the right hand first indi- 
cates by a chopping movement that the woodman 
is hacking the trunk from the stump ; then, by a 
sawing movement, that he is cutting it into logs 
of different lengths. The position of the hands 
which represents the house is clearly shown in 
the drawing, wherein gable, window, and street 
door may be easily recognised. The door has, 
however, been made rather too small. 

By cleanliness of body, by neat and suitable 
apparel, and by the development and right use 
of his physical and mental powers, each member 
of a family contributes to the activity and happi- 
ness of its corporate life. In like manner, the 
house should contribute by its plan, structure, 
and furniture to the ease with which all domestic 
duties may be fulfilled. What the skin is to the 
body, the house is to the family, whose life it 
environs, protects, and within certain limits de- 
termines. Can we exaggerate the influence of a 
wisely planned and well-ordered house, either 
upon the health, the comfort, or the happiness of 
its inmates ? May it be that children love to build 
little houses because they have a presentiment 
that the house shelters and nurtures that fam- 
ily life which is the high and holy exemplar of 
corporate living ? Doubt not that all that is 
serious and significant in the life of humanity 
thrills as premonitions in the breast of the child. 
Unfortunately, he does not understand his own 
obscure feelings. Even less, alas, are they under- 
stood and fostered by those who surround him ! 
16 



218 MOTHER PLAY. 

What a difference it would make to childhood, to 
youth, to humanity, in all stages of development 
and in all relationships, if these prescient stirrings 
of the soul were nurtured, strengthened, devel- 
oped, and finally lifted into the clear light of 
consciousness ! 

The priceless blessing of a happy home can be 
won only by struggle, endurance, and self-sacri- 
fice. Is some prophetic sense of this truth stir- 
ring the pulses of the little lad in our picture ? 
Is this why he is letting himself be sawed as if 
he were a tree ? 

And the two dear little sisters sitting so 
thoughtfully by the house they have built — are 
their hearts illuminated by a foregleam of the 
sanctity of the home ? 

What may not the little heads be thinking, 
the little hearts feeling ? 

Thus much at least the young child realizes — 
that it is pleasant to have a pretty, cosy home. 
Perhaps, too, within the depths of feeling may 
float an unconscious faith that from such a home 
stream the meaning, the sanctity, the blessedness 
of life. 

The mother who sits below on the left seems 
to be trying to impress upon her child that he 
should respect the carpenter and his labour. 
" Where,^' she asks, " could mother live, where 
could baby live, were it not for the kind carpen- 
ter who builds them a house ? " 



XXXIV. 

THE BRIDGE. 

Let your child build mimic bridges 

As his hands move to and fro ; 
Germs of thought are being planted 

Which in after years will grow. 

Face to face, but never meeting, 

Frown the river's ancient walls ; 
To the far divine, the human 

Through the ages faintly calls. 

Banks are fixed, but man can join them, 
Conquering stubborn space with skill ; 

And despite life's contradictions, 
Love at last learns God's dear will. 

The Bridge is produced by a slight modifica- 
tion of the House, or of the Charcoal-burner's Hut. 
The two thumbs make the piers, the finger-tips 
of the right and left hands meet to form the 
bridge. The tip of one middle finger is placed 
under that of the other. 

To find or create a bond of union between 
seemingly opposed and even antagonistic objects 
is always a beneficent and rewarding deed. 
Mother, be it your care to afi:ord your child early 
and recurrent experiences of this truth. No one 
feels more deeply than you the bitter pain born 
of apparently insoluble contradictions, or the joy 
which springs out of unhoped-for reconciliations. 
219 



THE BRIDGE. 221 

Through, such reconciliations the peace of heaven 
descends into human hearts and homes. 

Family and home are themselves a mediation 
of opposites, a reconciliation of contrasts. They 
bridge that deepest of all chasms which sepa- 
rates earth from heaven. Teach your child, there- 
fore, to recognise the inner in the outer ; to dis- 
cern in the house the symbol and safeguard of 
family life ; to revere in him who creates the 
visible sign a type of Him who confers the spirit- 
ual blessing. In a word, make his gratitude 
towards the carpenter a point of departure for 
wakening his gratitude towards Him who sent 
the carpenter's son to live on earth, in order that 
the sternest contradictions of life might be solved 
and the abodes of men become homes of peace 
and joy and divine indwelling. 

With this ideal in mind, lead your child to 
build, in play, the reconciling bridge, and thus 
through a uniting deed to gain his first forebod- 
ing of the truth that in himself and through his 
own self-activity he must find the solution of all 
contradictions, the mediation of all apparently 
irreconcilable opposition. Show him this truth 
again in your own life, and, above all, in the 
mediatorial life and teaching of Him who on 
earth was the carpenter's son. So shall the vis- 
ible bridge which the child carpenter builds be 
one link in the chain of experience by which he 
spans the gulf between things seen and things 
unseen, and learns to recognise in the carpenter's 
son the beloved Son of God, the All- Father, and 
the Mediator between him and man. 




222 



XXXV. 

THE FARMYARD GATE. 

Dear mother, try in all your baby's plays 

To sow some little seed for later days. 

If for liis pets he learns a tender care, 

The planted thought unlooked-for fruit may bear. 

An impulse given, in widening circles moves: 

He'll learn, ere long, to cherish all he loves. 

Your gentle words he may not seem to heed, 
But they shall live to serve him in his need ; 
Tliey Hoat now on the surface of his mind. 
But by-and-bye they shall safe harbour find i 
" My mother's words!" he to his heart shall say, 
" Oh, fold them in your tenderest depths away." 
223 




224 



THE TWO GATES. 225 



THE TWO GATES. 



The position of the hands which represents 
the Garden Gate is more accurately pictured than 
the position which represents the Farmyard Gate. 
Even the former picture, however, is defective, 
for the hands should be somewhat differently in- 
clined in order to suggest a gate. 

Each of these little games embodies an im- 
portant thought. The idea suggested in the Farm- 
yard Gate is that the child should be taught to 
prize and protect what he has acquired. The 
thought illustrated in the Garden Gate is that he 
should be led to recognise and name -the different 
objects in his environment. 

In your attempt to carry out the latter idea 
be careful to begin with the things which the 
child sees around him in the house, the yard, the 
garden, and the meadow. From these advance 
to the naming of objects in the pasture and the 
wood. 

Teach your child not onlj^ to recognise and 
name objects, but also to recognise and name 
qualities. Direct his attention both to the 
characteristic activities of things and to their 
characteristic states and conditions. Have you 
' not noticed how such experiences attract and 
delight him ? Do you not know that at a cer- 
tain stage of development he finds or invents, as 
if by magic, words expressive both of active and 
passive qualities ? With what delight he dis- 
tinguishes what is smooth, woolly, hairy, spark- 



226 MOTHER PLAY. 

ling, round! With what eagerness he notices 
and names such activities as rolling, creeping, 
hopping ! With what almost miraculous ease he 
seizes and unites precept, concept, and name ! 

Obey the hint thrown out by the child. Pre- 
serve and cherish his tendency to notice and 
name objects and their attributes. For as through 
disuse a magnet becomes rusty and loses its 
power, so the mind loses capacities which are not 
sufficiently and increasingly exercised. 

The precious wine in a broken glass must be 
enjoyed at once or lost forever. So, power not 
instantly exercised is wasted, and effort which 
finds no corresponding object weakens and dies. 

In flowers alone how many qualities there are 
which it interests the child to discover and name ! 
He loves to distinguish motley coloured from 
simpl}^ coloured blossoms; delicate and tender 
hues from brilliant ones. He gladly notices the 
forms of flowers, and identifies them as round, 
bell-shaped, star-shaped, wheel-shaped, funnel- 
shaped. He is attracted by the different kinds 
of inflorescence, and observes with pleasure that 
some flowers grow singly, some in pairs, some 
in bunches or heads, while some spread out 
like umbrellas. But why go into more detail ? 
Use your own eyes. Help your child to use his. 
He will quickly learn or find names for all that 
he really perceives. Waste not the fleeting mo- 
ments. In them germinates the seed which shall 
one day grow into a great tree of life — a tree 
which will comfort you with its shade and refresh 
you with its fruit. 



XXXVI. 

THE LITTLE GARDENER. 

If to a child's sole care is left 
Something which, of that care bereft, 

Would quickly pine and fade, 
The joy of nurture he will learn ; 
A rich experience, wliich will turn 

His inner life to aid. 

Moth fir, fold the fingers of your left hand so 
that they somewhat resemble a flower (e. g., the 
bud of a lily). With the fingers of your right 
hand make a watering can. Let your thumb 
represent the spout. Go through the movement 
of watering a flower, and while doing so gradu- 
ally open the fingers of your left hand to simulate 
the unfolding of a bud into a blossom. 

When you have made these movements a few 
times in the presence of your child he will begin 
to imitate you, for whatever mother love does a 
child gladly repeats. This imitative activity 
should be carefully cultivated. Rightly directed, 
it will lighten by more than half the work of 
education. Utilised at the proper stage of de- 
velopment, it will enable you to accomplish by a 
touch light as a feather what later you cannot 
do with a hundredweight of words. Believe that 
I am right before I am justified by painful expe- 
227 




228 



THE LITTLE GARDENER. 229 

rience ; otherwise insight will only feed your self- 
reproach. 

But we must not forget our little gardeners, 
for one of the fairest and most instructive mani- 
festations of child life is love of " gardening." 

Cherish! Nurture! Care for! These, dear 
mother, are words which w^e have had occasion 
to repeat many times in our communings with 
each other, and in our common attention to and 
participation in child life. Great must be, great 
assuredly is, their importance to the development 
of our darlings. Answer me but one question : 
What is the supreme gift you would bestow on 
the children who are the life of your life, the soul 
of your soul ? Would you not above all other 
things render them capable of giving nurture ? 
Would you not endow them with the courage 
and constancy which the ability to give nurture 
implies ? Mother, father, has not our common 
effort been directed towards just this end ? Have 
we not been trying to break a path towards this 
blessed life ? Has not our inmost longing been 
to capacitate our children for this inexpressible 
privilege ? Assuredly this is what we have been 
trying to do— what we are doing even now through 
our little Garden play. And because you, dear 
parents, are planting the love of nurture in the 
breasts of your children, you may securely hope 
that they will lovingly and gratefully cherish you 
in age.* 

* Here I omit a line. Froebel says : " You will be cherished 
by your grateful children, just as yonder boy is bestowing a 
gift upon the old man he scarcely knows." 



230 MOTHER PLAY. 

To give wise care, we must consider time and 
place. Thns all plants cannot bear to be watered 
directly on tlieir roots. This is particularly tlie 
case witli lilies, wliicli easily rot if it is done. 

The little gardener in onr picture says to us 
by her thoughtful mien, "In giving care, re- 
spect place." In like manner, the swiftly turning 
weather vane on the top of the garden house 
which commands so wide a view, says, " Consider 
time." 

Watering in the hot noonday does plants harm 
instead of good, for the tired leaves have no 
strength to utilise the kindly shower. 

In the sunlit garden, 

Through the glad spring day, 

Watch the happy httle folks 
Turning work to play. 

Guarding, watering, tending. 

With such pretty zeal. 
Doing from their Uttle hearts, 

As if the flowers coukl feel. 

Such work does not tire them, 

For they love it so ; 
And are thanked in measure full, 

If the flowers grow. 



Dear little children, we will learn from you; 

Gardens ?^'e7Z make, and you the flowers shall be; 

Our care shall seem no tedious drudgery- 
Only a happy trust that's ever now. 



THE LITTLE GARDENER. 231 

We'll guard you from the great world's strife and din; 
But, ah, our chief est, gladdest care shall be 
To give you your own selves ! to help you see 

The meaning of each opening power within. 

Oh, blessed thought, that God to us has given 
The finishing of that which he has planned ; 
And as we help your young souls to expand. 

Our own, in the sweet task, shall grow toward heaven. 



XXXVII, 

THE WHEELWRIGHT. 

Why will a child desert his play 

The craftsman's work to see ? 
Somethiug within him, latent still, 
Stirs at each stroke of strength or skill, 

Whispering, " Work waits for me !" 

The hands held in a vertical position, with the 
fingers closed, move horizontally as though de- 
scribing semicircles, thus simulating the action 
of a wheelwright who is boring a hole. 

At the words " Round it goes ! " th.e movement 
is changed, and the two fists go round and round 
each other like a rolling wheel. 

Said the wise man, " Thou art a man, there- 
fore let nothing which concerns man be indiffer- 
ent to thee." Here, as in many other cases, the 
practice of the simple child conforms to the in- 
sight of the sage. He is interested in everything 
done by grown-up people. The activities of 
handicraftsmen in particular attract his atten- 
tion. We have already seen how important is 
the hand, how im^Dortant are the products of the 
hand. Therefore, mother, foster and encourage 
your child's interest in watching the works of 
the skilled labourer, and find in it a "point of 
departure '' for the development of his own pro- 
17 233 



234 MOTHER PLAY. 

ductive power. Raise his pleasure in seeing 
work to pleasure in doing work, in order that 
later he may lead the truly human life of creative 
activity ; for upon the thoughtfully creative life 
is bestowed the guerdon of peace and joy. 

My little play of The Wheelwright is a means 
towards this end. The illustration accompany- 
ing it is freighted with rich suggestions. Every 
essential use of the wheel, so far as it relates to 
vehicles, is indicated, and from the wheel of the 
child's barrow we rise to the wheel in the chariot 
of the gods. Surely our artist wishes to impress 
upon us the importance of the wheel in all de- 
partments of life. What would become of the 
human race, in the stage of civilisation it has 
now attained, if it were forced to dispense with 
the wheel ? Need we wonder, therefore, that 
everything in the likeness of a wheel so attracts 
the child?* 

A knowledge of the qualities and uses of the 
wheel is likewise important because of its ana- 
logical implications. It is also well that the 
child should be familiar with objects allied to 
the wheel in form, such as the hoop, the circle, 
the wreath. Wishing to stir our souls with some 
sense of the spiritual significance of the circular 

* Here I omit a passage in which Froebel plays upon the Ger- 
man words Rad = a wheel and Bath, advice, contrasting the dif- 
ficult motion which, in the case of the wheel, is produced by a 
slight momentum, with the reluctance of youth to follow the 
advice of maturity, and suggesting that by noticing the former 
the child may be incited to a more ready compliance with the 
latter. 



THE WHEELWRIGHT. 235 

form, our artist shows ns two boys who, bowling 
their hoops around a circle in opposite directions, 
are nevertheless sure in the end to come, though 
perhaps unexpectedly, and even unwillingly, to 
the same spot. Is he teaching us that all the 
different paths of life are bent by the Higher 
Power towards one common goal ? 

But why does our picture point us to the 
mythical age of gods and heroes ? The true 
artist does nothing by chance. It seems to me 
he is trying to tell us that by loyal attention and 
response to the hints thrown out by childhood, 
and by an education consonant with the needs of 
childhood, we may revive the mythic period of 
human history, with its dross cleansed, its dark- 
ness illumined, its aims and ideals purified. 

Shall we scorn the artist's fancies ? Shall we 
scout his hopes that they may be realised ? 




2oG 



XXXVIII. 

THE JOINER. 

Each thing around us speaks 
A language all its own. 
And though we may have grown 
Hardened and dull of ear, 
The little children hear. 

But, ah, they cannot know 
How blest such hearing is, 
Until, alas, it flies ! 
Then let us help them keep 
The gift whose loss we weep. 

In this game the fists, by a sliding movement 
over a flat surface, represent the act of pLaning. 
The strokes should be sometimes long and some- 
times short. 

To what truths does this simple game point ? 
What is its inner sense ? What relationsliip has 
it to life ? 

Through the play of The Finger Piano the 
child's attention was directed to the connection 
between tone, movement, and number, or, in a 
word, to the characteristic phenomena of sound 
included under the general form of time. But 
sound is connected also with the phenomena of 
space, for if any material substance be stretched 
to a great length its tone is deep ; while, on the 
other hand, if the length stretched be short and 
thin, the tone will -be high. The concepts long 
and short are therefore mediatorial between the 
phenomena of space and those of time. 

237 



238 MOTHER PLAY. 

That these concepts have likewise important 
bearings upon child life is self-evident. How 
often, for example, must you say to your little 
ones : " You may stay out of doors, but not too 
long.'' " You must work now, but only for a 
short time," etc. 

As the play of The Fishes gave you occasion 
to suggest both the literal and analogical mean- 
ings of straight and crooked, so the play of The 
Joiner offers a point of departure for the evolu- 
tion of the literal and analogical meanings of 
long and short. As the picture accompanying the 
former play gave varied illustrations of straight 
and crooked, so the picture of The Joiner gives 
varied illustrations of long and short. It will de- 
light your child to seek these different illustra- 
tions and discover their contrasts and connections. 

The goal of this play is the discovery that 
outward size does not presuppose inward great- 
ness. The contrast between the great giant Go- 
liath and the stripling David suggests to the 
imagination an inverse ratio between the phys- 
ically and spiritually great. Hence the former is 
in the child world a comic character, while with 
dear little David each embryo hero feels the 
keenest sympathy.* 

* Froebel closes this commentary by quoting two lines of a 
little poem probably familiar to most of his German readers : 

" Giant Goliath was once alive, 
A very dangerous man." 

This poem was written by Matthias Claudius (1740-1815), and 
printed in the Wandsbecker Bote, a periodical published about a 
hundred years ago in llolstein. (Miss Lord's note.) 



XXXIX. 

THE KNIGHTS AND THE GOOD CHILD. 

The truth that no life stands alone, 

Lies hid in baby's soul ; 
Long ere he learns its pain and strife, 
He feels th' encircling touch of life, 

And yields to its control. 

But, mother, when the love of praise 

First stirs a wistful thought— 
When disapproval gives him pain — 
His little life has reached a plane 

With subtlest danger fraught. 

Oh, guide him with a love clear-eyed, 

That he may not confuse 
Merit with praise ! Help him to care 
Rather to be than to appear. 

E'en though the praise he lose.* 

So shall the touch of other lives 

Help and uplift his own. 
Strong in himself he'll learn to be, 
Yet glad that human sympathy 

May bind all hearts in one. 

Your child sits in your lap. Your left arm is 
thrown gently around him. The fingers of your 
right hand (beginning with the little finger and 
going towards the thumb) trot or gallop one after 
the other, first towards the child and then away 

* This stanza does not render Froebel's exact thought. See 
prose translation in appendix.— Fr. 

239 




m\ 



i35ic 9tcftcr tinb &a§ <\ute ^inb. 

"©in [tilled Slbnen licgt tm .ftinb 

S5 fteb' tm Jeben nl*t aOcin ; 
i:rum, ftebft Su ca nuf jrcm^c3 

Urtl)eil bord^cn, 
2)ann, aJJutttr! gilt co acht 

film [ein. 
Tiai .^luti lieglnnt ble ncue I'tbLn^- 

ftufe, 
3u bordien fc^on bem ccbtcn 2e 

bcnwufe ; 
^ab'' ®ot-ge nun fur 3)cm Ucb 

^tutdicn rem, 
2)a9 friib nt*t trube e« cm 

fatt'd^cr tod)Ltn. 
2luf §Ui§ercm nidit ftdur riibm 

bleibc, 
8td) innern 3?Dr^uq iruftttd) ju 

crftreben trdbt." 




r^ 



240 



THE KNIGHTS AND THE GOOD CHILD. 94I 

from him. These advancing and retiring fingers 
simulate the approach, arrival, and departure of 
mounted knights. 

With this song and those which follow it we 
rise to a new and higher plane of development. 
What has hitherto been done to fashion the will 
and build the character has been incidental — as 
it were, a thing aside. What is now to be done 
must be with" clear intention and deliberate aim. 

The mounted knight expresses free self-de- 
termination, free mastery of the will. Through 
his control of his steed he also presents sym- 
bolically the mastery of the rude powers of Na- 
ture. Hence, in the prescient phantasy of child- 
hood the knight stands out a clear-cut image of 
ideal freedom and beauty. 

Since the knight is thus in a certain sense the 
embodied ideal of childhood, boy and girl alike 
will value what he values and strive to be the 
thing he commends. In this relationship of child- 
hood to the ideal knight or hero are rooted this 
little play and its two immediate successors. 

The motto to this song warns us that we have 
risen to a new plane of development, and that 
upon this higher level we are confronted by great 
dangers. The child has discriminated between 
himself and another [an ideal self], hence he 
measures, weighs, compares. His power of dis- 
crimination is, however, feeble, therefore he is 
prone to confound what he may become with 
what he is, and to believe himself already the 
thing he would like to be. This confusion of the 
ideal and the actual is heightened by our own 



242 MOTHER PLAY. 

thoughtless folly, for, seeing in the child some 
leaning towards the good, loving him for some 
budding promise of character, we treat him as if 
his possible achievement were a present reality, 
and thus feed his vanity and relax his will. Let 
us be clear with ourselves on this point, for too 
often our own confusion of the real and the po- 
tential works permanent injury to the children 
committed to our care. 

Through the attitude of others towards him- 
self the recognition of what is good should- be 
awakened in the child, and his desire to be good 
should be strengthened and developed. Evident- 
ly this result will be attained only if he under- 
stands that he must be good in order to be re- 
spected and loved. Therefore, mother, let your 
behaviour be such that your darling may early 
realise that your approval is given not to his visi- 
ble, small person, nor to his visible deeds, but to 
his true self — that you care for him for his soul's 
sake, and that your love is fed by actions which 
express his inner life and aspiration. Let him 
understand, too, that you love him not only for 
what he is, but for what you hope he will grow 
to be, and that whenever he lessens your hope he 
attacks your affection. 

These thoughts seem to me so important that 
I will restate them. When your child begins to 
be attentive to the judgment of others concern- 
ing himself, you must solve a double problem. 
First, you must clearly discriminate what he is 
from what he may become, and through your 
conduct towards him must make him aware of 



THE KNIGHTS AND THE GOOD CHILD. 243 

this distinction. Second, you must clearly dis- 
criminate between his visible actions and their 
inner grounds or motives, otherwise you will fos- 
ter in him a false conception of his own individu- 
ality. The distinction of the ideal and potential 
from the real — the distinction of the inner motive 
from the visible act — these are cardinal points of 
the moral life. Upon his success or failure to ap- 
prehend them it will depend whether your child 
lives and strives for being or appearance, for 
what is seen and temporal or for what is unseen 
and eternal. During the periods of infancy and 
early childhood it is in your power to give direc- 
tion to his aspiration. The stream of his life is 
then but a tiny rill whose channel may be turned 
at i3leasure. Later it will become a flood whose 
course is beyond all control. 

One more point must be mentioned. The 
child is incited towards pursuit of the good, not 
only or even chiefly by the recognition accorded 
himself, but by the respect, consideration, and 
honour shown to the good in others. Every dis- 
tinction bestowed upon another — which seems to 
the child a merited distinction— rouses him to 
emulation, spurs him to effort. 

'' What was the song- that the brave knights saDg ? 

I wish I could hear it too ! " 
" Then, darling, sit quietly here in my lap, 

And I will sing it to you.'* 



244 MOTHER PLAY, 



SONG. 

Come, children, and hear the song- that we sin^ — 

The song of a child who is good: 
We saw him to-day, as we rode on our way 

Through valley and meadow and wood. 

Like a flower in its calyx he seemed to our eyes, 
As his mother's arras fr>lded him round; 

But better by far than a hundred flowers are 
Was this good little child that we found. 

He built us a nice little house with his blocks; 

He ran, with a step strong and free, 
To pick up what fell, and restore it as well, 

To the ovv^ner whoever he be. 

We thought that the angels had taught him to play, 

All his plays were so happy and true; 
But we learned in a while that his dear mother's smile 

Was the only angel he knew. 

Her gentle caresses were dearer to him 

Than aught else below or above. 
And all that he had he was eager and glad 

To give her as proof of his love. 

No pleasure was full till he shared it with her, 
And at last, when the long day was done. 

And he sat on her lap, safe from harm or mishap, 
He told of his plays one by one. 

Then she sang to him softly until his eyes closed, 
And his pretty head sank on her breast ; 

Then laid him, instead, in his own little bed, 
As warm as a bird in its nest. 



THE KNIGHTS AND THE GOOD CHILD. 2-1:5 

Vv^ith tenderest touch the covers she spread, 

And whispered a prayer the while. 
No song- did w^e hear, but augels were near, 

We knew by the baby's sweet smile. 



" Oh the song was so pretty — but I too am tired. 

" Then lay your head here on my arm 
And sleep sweetly, dear, for mamma is near, 

To shelter her baby from harm." * 

* Henrietta R. Eliot. 



XL. 

THE KNIGHTS AND THE BAD CHILD. 

E'en as a itiagnet, goodness draws the good ; 
A magnet does not plot, in scheming mood ; 

It simply is, and so attracts. 
Oh, help your child to feel tliis in his heart: 
Evil repels, but goodness without art, 

Still, but resistless, like a magnet acts ! 

On its external side this game resembles its 
predecessor. 

When little children are cross and sulky wo 
often try to divert them by attracting their at- 
tention to something that is noisy and even 
deafening. This practice rarely attains its end. 
Nevertheless, there is an element of truth in the 
impulse out of which it springs, and it fails of its 
end just because it does not clearly recognise 
this latent truth or comply with its demands. 

Discontent, crossness, and sulkiness, when not 
due to bodily ailment, are often caused by some 
excessive and one-sided excitement of the feelings 
—an excitement which, just because it is one- 
sided, renders the child powerless to free himself 
from it by his own effort. The little victim, who 
cannot help himself, and who is keenly suffering 
from his bad temper, needs all the help a wise 
and tender nurture can give. The best way to 
help him is to attract his glance quickly to some 

247 



2-1-8 MOTHER PLAY. 

Tinexpected object whose appearance is likely to 
allure and hold his attention. This object should 
not be a noisy one, for noise will tend only to 
augment his nervous excitement. It should, 
however, be something which is unexpected, sur- 
prising, and impressive. I have seen little chil- 
dreii, whose excitement no one could soothe, 
calmed at once by being carried into another 
room and given an unexpected peep at the moon. 
I have seen the same result produced in the day- 
time, by carrying the overstrained child quickly 
out of doors and attracting his attention to run- 
ning chickens or flying l:>irds. The sight of some- 
thing which unexpectedly disappears will also 
tend to distract the mind and calm the nerves. 

The game now offered to you will attract your 
child, because it brings before him once again the 
knights Avho so captivate his imagination. The 
unexpected withdrawal of the knights will also 
direct his thoughts into new channels. 

Motto and song interpret each other. The 
conclusion of the commentary on The Knights 
and the Good Child will also throw light upon 
the spirit of this little game. 



XLI. 

THE KNIGHTS AND THE MOTHER. 

Teach your child that every one 
Loves him when he's good and true; 

But that, though so dear to others, 
He is doubly dear to you. 

So far as the movements of the fingers are 
concerned, this play is identical with the two 
which precede it. In how many ways your child 
may hide himself— or, rather, may fancy himself 
hidden — no one need suggest to you. 

The spirit which inspires this game is one with 
the spirit of the two preceding games, in so far 
as all three relate to the bond of union between 
the child and other human beings. This new 
game, however, penetrates even more deeply into 
his inner life, since it aims to make him conscious 
of the peculiar tie between his own heart and the 
heart of his mother. 

It is of the utmost importance alike to the 
child and to the common life and intercourse of 
mother and child that the tie between them 
should be defined to the consciousness of the lat- 
ter, through the same mediating symbol * which 



* E. g., The Play of the Knights. 
18 249 



SJnfcdjcn, ocrftcrfc ^id)l 



"Da§ matt ®ute3 miiffe wat)rcn, 
8ag aud) ha\h Dcin ilinb crfal^ren; 
S)a§ ®u ®utc^ wet§t ju fc()a^en, 
Daran ta^ Dein j^inb ft* lefcen." 




250 



THE KNIGHTS AND THE MOTHER. 251 

wakens liis sense of the link between himself 
and human beings in general. Otherwise the 
relationship between mother and child may de- 
teriorate into a merely physical one, and this 
is injurious to both, whether from the point of 
view of bodily health, intellectual growth, or 
moral effort. 

Another thought, dear mother, presses upon 
our consideration. It has been casually alluded 
to and illustrated in preceding plays and mot- 
toes. But if we wish to be enlightened edu- 
cators, we must give it our direct and full at- 
tention. The most active and influential force 
in the education of your children is your own 
true character. What you really are in your- 
self ; Avhat you really think about the disposi- 
tions, deeds, and aims of your children ; what 
you really approve and condemn; why you ap- 
prove and why you condemn; what you prize 
and why you prize it ; how you guard and cher- 
ish the things you prize — in a single word, what 
you show yourself to be in yourself, in your 
home, and to your family : this is the power 
which will most influence your children, and 
that even when they are so small that you may 
imagine them incapable of understanding or even 
feeling it. 

How often is it said that mother and child are 
all in all to each other ! All-in-all ! Mother, pon- 
der these words. Be all in all to your child, not 
only in your feeling but with insight and assured 
deliberate deed. Feeling misunderstood becomes 
inordinate, and overflows its protecting banks. 



252 MOTHER PLAY. 

Then, instead of a blessing, it becomes an injury 
alike to mother and child.* 



* Students of Froebel will observe that I have omitted the 
conversation and rhyme which close this commentary. They 
will also observe that in Volume II I give two versions of the 
song for the child. 

In the original song the mother is represented as hiding her 
child from the knights, who wish to carry him away. This has 
troubled the minds of many kindergartners, while by others it 
is believed to be the one feature of the game which more than 
any other tends to strengthen the bond of union between mother 
and child. It has therefore seemed well to me to give two ver- 
sions of the song, and in order to harmonise the commentary 
with both versions to make the omissions indicated above. 

The omitted conversation and poem are rendered as follows 
in Miss Lord's version of the Mother Play : 

"Mother, why did the knights want to have the little 
child ? " 

" Why, you sec, because it was a good, dear little child. That 
is why the knights wanted to have it too ; only its mother loved 
it so much because it was good, and did not give it to the 
knights. She would not even let them see it at all." 

" And you, my child, are very dear, 

And very precious too ; 
God sent indeed a treasure here 

When his love sent me you. 
And if you're only good, my pet, 

A gentle child, and always kind, 
Your heart by happy courage set, 

Gladness and merriment to iind, 
The bond between us two will stay, 

That makes us love each other so ; 
And when the knights come by this way, 

And want you, I shall say, ' Oh, no I 
It's right to guard such gifts ; so ride away ! ' " 

" I will be good — yes, mother dear, I want to stay with you ; 
Only please love me just -as much, and be good to me too." 



THE KNIGHTS AND THE .MOTHER. 253 

A slight alteration of the conversation will harmonise it with 
the alternative version of the song : 

" Mother, why did the knights want to take the child a- 
riding ? " 

** Because he was a dear, good little boy. That was why his 
mother, too, loved him so dearly, and could only spare him to 
the knights for a little while." 

Having referred several times informally to Miss Lord's ver- 
sion of Mother Play, I give here the correct title of the book : 
Mother's Songs. Games and Stories, Froebel's Mutter und Kose 
Lieder, rendered in English by Frances and Emily Lord. 



93erfle(fm (cd ^inbe^. 



„®aritm mag wot)! tai ^iubi^cn metn 
aSerftccfenfptel [o fef)r erfrcun ? „ — 
"©2 ift tai ®efu()I ber ?>erfDnUd)fdt, 
2Ba3 je^t fchon 2)ctn ^iutd)en [o I)cc^ erfmtt : 
Qi tft bae ©efiibi, \ld) fclKt ju crfennen, 
SBenn '« (}oret fcinen 5?amen nennen ; 
D'rum weiin jum SPerftedfpiel 2)ctn ^inbd)cn ftd) ndgt 
^at '3 neue gittraicEctung^ftufe crreid)t. 
Son ie^t an muft 2)u e« nun fcriilid) bcwal^ren ; 
2)enn biefe (S)efuf){e umfd)»ebcn @efaf)ren.— 
^annft ©tnntgleit unb ©tttigfett 
Unb fo 33ertraun unb DfTenl)eit 
Du je^t fd)on in bcm ttnb crwccfen, 
2)ai fie bUibcn, 
2Burjeln treibcn, 
Stle njtrb c« je [ein Zi}m wx I)tr vcrftcrfen." 




254 



XLII. 
HIDE AND SEEK. 

Why does my little one lau;^h so, and crow 

With pretty, exultant pride, 
Wlien I lind him at last, after feigning long 

To look for him far and wide ? 

Ah, well may a note of exulting be heard 

In the laugh of the sweet little elf! 
He triumphs not only because he is found, 

But because he \^ finding Mmself. 

Ho feels that his being is something apart 
From the people and things that surround ; 

He knows who is meant when his name is called out ; 
When he hides, that 'tis lie must be found. 

Play on, gentle mother — play on with thy child, 

But his deeper life never forget ; 
He has reached a new stage, with new need of thy cure 

To guard where new dangers beset. 

With reverent love greet each wak fining power, 

And turn its glad eyes to the light ; 
He hides now in sport, but he never will hide 

His opening soul from thy sight. 

Is there anywhere a mother who does not 
know Hide and Seek ? Can there be a mother 
whose baby has not hidden himself on her breast, 
beneath her arm, in her lap, under her ker- 
chief ? Hiding, indeed, seems to have an inex- 
haustible charm alike for baby and for his some- 
what older brothers and sisters, and hiding games 
255 



256 MOTHER PLAY. 

never fail to arise in and develop with child- 
hood. Their universality proves them to be 
deeply rooted in human nature, and suggests that 
they must have significant recoils upon develop- 
ment and education. 

We have recognised that the natural and 
original unity of feeling between mother and 
child may become inordinate and injurious. But 
if unity misunderstood works evil, how much 
greater evil must spring from separation and 
estrangement when these are either half -under- 
stood or wholly misinterpreted ? 

In view of the dangers of estrangement, is it 
not surprising that with unhesitating instinct 
you invite your darling to hide from you ? Is it 
not passing strange that hiding should give him 
delight ? 

Nay, mother, nay! Well is it for you, well 
is it for your child, that the original incitement 
to separation should spring from your heart. All 
giving is linked with receiving, or rather, let me 
say, all giving blossoms out of receiving. This is 
the clue to your instinctive procedure. Make it 
clear to your consciousness that you may justify 
the promptings of your love, and avoid the dan- 
gers into which all blind impulses are so easily 
betrayed. 

You incite your child to hide from you. He 
enjoys hiding from you. It is a keen excitement 
to him to be so concealed that for long minutes 
you cannot see him and are not able to find him. 
Herein undoubtedly lurks a germ of danger. Be- 
ware lest he find such pleasure in concealment 



HIDE AND SEEK. 257 

that he is willing to hide longer and longer, and 
that in the end he becomes indifferent to being 
found. Be watchful lest his impulse to hide him- 
self be distorted into an impulse to hide his ac- 
tions. Be careful, above all, that the pure play 
impulse of hiding be not corrupted by some 
chance deed done while hidden ! 

The possibility of such a deed is the germ of 
evil alluded to above ; for therein lurks the dan- 
ger that he may begin to hide his actions, and 
increasingly seek to conceal what he knows you 
cannot approve, what he fears you may condemn 
and punish. 

I will not torture your feelings by tracing in 
detail the transition from concealment to evasion, 
from evasion to distortion of facts, from such dis- 
tortion to wilful falsehood. Rather will I try to 
answer the question which is sounding in your 
heart, and tell you how you may avoid the dan- 
gers incident to the play which yields your child 
such pure delight, and which is so intimately 
allied with his free and joyous development. 

Ponder the game itself. Observe the child as 
he plays it. Notice particularly how his eyes 
sparkle with joy when he is found. However 
safely he hides himself, how still soever he keeps 
while hidden, his one anxiety is that he may be 
found ; the single source of his pleasure is an- 
ticipation of the moment when his hiding place 
shall be discovered. 

But why, then, does he hide at all ? He might 
lie unhidden in your arms, upon your knee, close 
to your heart, and, looking into your eyes, see you 



258 MOTHER PLAY. 

looking lovingly back at liim. Does lie hide 
himself in order to conceal himself from you ? 
Does he wish to be separated from you ? God 
forbid ! He seeks through physical separation 
to heighten his sense of spiritual union. The 
length of time he enjoys being hidden measures 
the rising tides of his consciousness. The delight 
of finding you again, the joy of being again 
found and seen by you, increase just in propor- 
tion as his thought submerged in feeling rises 
out of darkness into the light. 

In order, therefore, to guard your child from 
the possibility of pleasure in concealment, cher- 
ish his desire to be found, heighten his joy in 
reunion. Then from the point where danger 
seemed to threaten will come the help you need, 
and instead of sorrow you will win access of joy. 

So is it, so must it always be, in God's world. 
A threatening danger is an offered help. The 
longing for physical separation is the mark of a 
craving for spiritual union. Understand this 
impulse, and respond to the need it indicates. 
So shall you solve a knotty problem ; so shall 
you win safety, blessing, peace, and joy. 

The goal of life is unity. The yearning for 
estrangement merely points to the path by which 
unity may be attained. 



XLIII. 

THE CUCKOO. 

The mother calls " Cuckoo ! " to baby now, 
But there shall come erelong another call, 

Hidden, yet near, 
And oh so soft and low, 

The child must listen well if he would hear ! 

At first it seems a call from other where, 
But, heeded well, it enters the child's soul, 

A dweller meet ; 
And ever thenceforth there 

Mingles its mandates with his heart's life-beat. 

"But wherefore, then, The Cuckoo game?" 
asks sorue one who has never pondered the deep 
meanings which lie hidden in childish play. Is it 
not exactly like Hide and Seek, only that one 
calls out " Cuckoo '^ to the hiding child ? 

Consider the two games carefully, and you will 
see that, though nearly allied, they differ widely. 
The Cuckoo is an expansion, or, more precisely, a 
higher evolution, of Hide and Seek, and makes its 
appearance at a later stage of development. What, 
then, is the difference between the two plays ? 
Through what contrasting feature does The 
Cuckoo show an advance upon its predecessor ? 

Observe each game closely, thoughtful mother, 
and you will easily discover their differences. In 
the one, separation and union are thrown into 
relief by contrast, in order that each may be more 

259 



THE CUCKOO. 261 

consciously felt ; in the other, these contrasts are 
mediated by the cuckoo call. The salient charac- 
teristic of The Cuckoo play is union in separa- 
tion, and separation in union. In this peculiar- 
ity lies the secret of its abiding charm. Since the 
consciousness of union in separation, and of sepa- 
ration (i. e., personality) in union, is the root of 
conscience, the child's delight in this little game 
shows us that his spiritual ear is becoming sensi- 
tive to her still small voice. 

Well for the child, well for the man, to whom 
throughout life the voice of conscience is the 
prophecy and pledge of an abiding union with 
God! 

Above the heads of the mother and children 
in our picture the sun is rising. Is our artist 
hinting to us the rise of that great spiritual Sun 
in whose light they shall learn their abiding dis- 
tinction and their indissoluble union ? 

"What is it, mother, sometimes speaks to me, 
Like something dear and sweet I cannot see ? 
That seems to smile when I am all alone, 
With love as kind and gentle as your own." 

" Child, when your mother's face you cannot see, 
There is a loving presence still with thee; 
And when your mother's voice you cannot hear. 
There still is something whispering in your ear: 
' Be good, be glad, be thankful for the love 
That never leaves, but smiles from heaven above !' 
Within thy heart abides that presence bright, 
The gift of God to guide m.y child aright." * 

* Emily Huntington Miller. 




sea 



XLIV. 

THE TOYMAN AND THE MAIDEN. 

The child, with prescience of life's complex joys, 
Looks with delight upon the shopman's toys. 
The mother, in whose heart those joys have smiled, 
With present gladness looks upon her child. 

THE TOYMAN AND THE BOY. 

The toyman spreads his wares with skilful hand, 
While in the boy's mind, all unbid, arise 

Vague stirrings which he cannot understand — 
Strange newborn yearnings towards life's great emprise 5 

Yearnings which, wisely trained, will grow at length 

To motive power, still strengthening with his strength. 

The position of the hands in these little plays 
is simple and familiar. It is likewise clearly 
shown in the picture of The Toyman and the 
Boy. The middle and ring fingers of each hand 
touching at their tips represent the toyshop. The 
forefingers lying one above the other suggest a 
counter. The two little fingers are salesmen 
standing behind the counter; the two thumbs 
are buyers standing before it. These buyers are, 
in one case, a mother and daughter ; in the other, 
a father and son. 

The mart of life has its claims and its lessons. 
When either a child or a man has become in- 
268 




©cr ^aufmann «nb bet jtnabe. 

"Dii ^anb ben ^aufmann jcigt gcwanbt ; 
Setdu i\tclu baS .Htnb audi bicfe $anb, 
9B nil \ic tntb Icnft nut ?icbc(Jftnn 
2)aa Jttiicd)eit fd)on jum ©uten l)in." 




THE TOYMAN AND THE MAIDEN. 265 

wardly clear to himself, and has gained the mas- 
tery over himself, he may go to this mart with 
pleasure and profit. There he will find hundreds 
of things to be set not only in physical but in 
spiritual relations to himself and to others. In 
the needs of man revealed by the products of man 
he may behold human nature and human life re- 
flected as in a mirror. Gazing into this mirror, 
he will learn to recognise his own genuine needs, 
and grow able to choose for himself both the 
things which are outwardly useful and those 
which will edify and gladden his soul. Frequent- 
ing thus the great mart of life, he wins from it a 
really pious joy. 

Such a joy the child is blindly seeking when 
he longs to go to the market and the shop. He 
feels its premonitory thrill as he gazes at the 
motley stalls of the one and the brilliant counters 
of the other. 

In the rich mart of life each person may choose 
for himself useful and beautiful things. Special 
choices will be determined by age, sex, and voca- 
tion. The little girl, the maiden, the mother, the 
housewife, will, desire things which serve and 
adorn the home — things which lighten the duties 
and augment the charm of family life. The boy, 
the youth, the man, the father, will wish to pro- 
tect his home, and his choices will be influenced 
by this desire. The woman will prefer beautiful 
things ; the man strong things. Blending in har- 
monious union, the strong and the beautiful pro- 
duce the good. Understanding that they comple- 
ment each other, man and woman are transfigured 
19 



266 MOTHER PLAY. 

from external counterparts into a spiritual unity, 
and with their mutual recognition life becomes 
one, whole, complete. 

A prescient feeling of the inner in the outer ; 
of similarity in distinction ; of unity in the mani- 
fold ; of the universq.1 in the particular — such is 
the impulsive power which drives the child to 
the market and the shop. He longs to look at 
life in a mirror, to find himself through looking, 
and to win from this rich exj^erience the power 
and the means of embodying his own deep self- 
hood. 

Hence your child, if he be truly childlike, will 
not crave physical possession of all the things he 
sees. His heart's desire will be fully satisfied by a 
doll or a cart, a whistle or a sheep, provided only 
that in and through his toy he finds and repre- 
sents himself and his little world. 



XLV. 

THE CHURCH. 

When to the church a little child is brought, 

Its sacred service stirs within his thought 

Strange yearnings — dim, but with deep meaning fraught. 

He sees unnumbered heads, all bowed in prayer. 
Asking one Father's guidance, help, and care, 
While all the words of one petition share. 

And when the organ's deep, melodious tone 
Preludes some hymn by all long loved and known, 
He hears unnumbered voices rise as one. 

The meaning of it all he can not tell. 

And yet the praying throng, the hymn's rich swell, 

Hold him as in a sweetly solemn spell. 

Seize the swift mood, dear mother, that its glow 
May warm the seed of truth which you would sow ; 
Thus planted in his life, 'twill root and grow. 

For even as one mastering thought can thrill 
A thousand differing minds and hearts until 
They move with one desire, have but one will : 

So in each life one consecrated aim. 

One high endeavovir, like a chemist's flame. 

Melts and reshapes each lesser thought or claim. 

But, ah ! this truth you must yourself first prove 
Ere you can teach it to the child you love. 
Once learned, he'll value it all else above. 

Think not that he is all too young to teach : 
His little heart will like a magnet reach 
And touch the truth for which you find no speech. 
267 




268 



THE CHURCH. 2G9 

Already Nature has your task begun, 
For see how discord even now he'll shun, 
But love to stay where all things are at one. 

If you would bind your little one to you, 
Bind your own soul to all that's high and true. 
And let its light shine clear through all you do. 

The forearms held in a vertical jjosition repre- 
sent doorposts. The hands bent towards each 
other make the arch of the door. The four fin- 
gers of one hand spread out over the four fingers 
of the other hand suggest a window over the 
door. The thumbs stand above like little belfries. 

All free expressions of child life are symbolic 
and point to an inward ground. Hence their 
spiritual magnetism and charm. 

Dimly and unconsciously the child feels the 
unity of life. Because his feeling is blind he 
often misunderstands it. Because it is living, he 
rejoices in all its outward incarnations. This is 
the reason why, at the stage of development de- 
scribed in my commentary on The Toyman, he 
delights to frequent the places where men meet 
together and take counsel with each other. 

In all families where churchgoing has any 
real meaning, stands in any real relation to cor- 
porate and individual life, the children are anx- 
ious to go to church, and count an occasional 
participation in its services a great privilege and 
joy. This joy, in the first instance, springs not 
from any understanding of what is said or sung, 
but from the simple fact that with inner col- 
lectedness and devotion all the worshiy^ping con- 
gregation sing the same hymns, unite in the 



270 MOTHER PLAY. 

same prayers. The child knows that a common 
thought is stirring many minds, a common feel- 
ing throbbing in many hearts. By this recogni- 
tion his own presentiment of the unity and har- 
mony of life is fed and strengthened. Hence his 
joy in church going. 

But a time will come when he will ask what 
mean the words which all are saying, the songs 
which all are singing. His question must be 
answered in a way corresponding to the stage of 
development he has attained and to the degree 
and range of his spiritual experience. In my 
song of The Church I have endeavoured to sug- 
gest how this may be done. Study this song, and 
you will find that it points to two distinct stages 
of spiritual evolution : a narrower and a wider, an 
earlier and a later. Choose from it what you 
need for your child. Develop its hints, follow 
the path it opens. In all that you do, however, 
make it your chief aim to satisfy, fulfil, and 
strengthen the prophesies of the soul. So doing, 
you will open the child's inner ear to the har- 
monies which sound through and are echoed 
from his heart. Then shall he learn to recog- 
nise these harmonies in Nature and in life,* 



* " Truth seek we both : thou, in the world without thee and 

around ; 
I, in the world within ; by both alike may truth be found. 
The healthy eye may through the world the great Creator 

track ; 
The healthy heart is but the glass that gives creation back." 

SCUILLER. 



THE CHURCH. 271 

and shall find at last his own accord with him 
who is 

" The life of all life, 
The lig-ht of all light, 
The love of all love, 
The good of all good- 
God." 



^et tltim 3e{d)nfr* 



et ! iai mmiim Hetn 

gafl etn 9^i(I)t« erfd)eint bee ^inbeg traft, 

aJitnbeftene nod) unbebeutenb flein ; • 
Slber roa^ ijl nsol}!, ba^ aUiuci; ®rc§e3 fi^afft : 

ginbeft ei im aflertletnften iltctn. 
Slflc^^, aUei, xoai nur um I)i(l) bcr entfteljt, 

©ei e* nod) fo unerme§Ud) grog, 
Sltle* aue bent Aleinften ftete beroor nut ge^t. 

2Ba2 bae ganje SlU tnrgt in bem ©d)o§, 
5lu3 bem, ©innen faum 2Baf)rnet)mbar'n, ge^t'^ tcnjot, 

Datum ifi ja ©ott [o gbtttid) grog ! 
©trijme, beren 5Wauf(^en ganj bctoubt 2)ein Dbr, 

2Bte bie Sonnen baben gleid)ce So«: 
5lue bem 9Itd)te bercorrief ®ott fte, ber fie fd)wf ! 

®)jrad) @r nid)t : ©ct awdi im A'lcinfien trcu? ! 
Unb Dw woUtefl nid)t im ^inb serflct)n ben Sdnf ? 

SDicincft Tu, bag t) i e r ei anttxi fei ? 
Darum, Gltcrn, mad)t e« ®ud) ^um n)td)ttgflcn ©cfd}afte, 
£reu ju pflegen Sure^ Sinbe* unfdjetnbare ^rafte. 




272 



XLVI. 

THE LITTLE ARTIST. 

The things a child can make 

May crude and worthless be ; 
It is his impulse to create 

Should gladden thee ! 

' The greatest things have grown 
All slowly to their prime ; 
From least beginnings, vaguely known, 
In farthest time. 

The river, whose strong tide 

ISIo bridge may safely span, 
Can be traced back to the small spring 
Where it began. 

The steadfast earth we tread. 

The moon, the stars, the sun. 
Were called from nothing ere yet time 
Had been begun. 

No— rather were they born 
From the enfolding All, 
Whose method only is to bring 

Great things from small. 

His method, which still reigns 

Through all the wondrous whole— 
The outward universe— the race, 
Each human soul. 

" Be faithful in the least ! " 

O wise, sweet words for all, 
But sweetest on a mother's ear 

They seem to fall— 
273 



2^4 MOTHER PLAY. 

Throwing a sacred light 

On each weak putting forth 
Of her child's soul, and giving it 
Prophetic worth. 

Your child sits, as he so loves to do, upon your 
lap. With the index finger of your right hand, 
or with his index finger, you draw in the air out- 
lines suggestive of simple objects. Such outlines 
may also be traced in sand spread out upon a 
tray, or, again, when the child is older, upon a 
slate. Finally, you may, if you prefer, begin by 
drawing in sand, advance from this to drawing 
on the slate, and end by describing outlines in 
the air. Good reasons may be given for pursuing 
either of these plans. The tracing of outlines in 
the air delights very young children, because it 
is a definite and suggestive movement. 

In any and all of its forms drawing is pleasing 
to children. The grounds of such pleasure are 
obvious. Drawing attests the mind's creative 
power, and offers a seemingly simple form for its 
exertion. How, then, can it fail to be delightful, 
especially upon the plane of development to 
which we have now ascended ? 

The child's mind has a relatively rich and va- 
ried content. He has, moreover, begun to feel 
the unity in manifoldness, and through his soul 
flit shadowy suggestions of the identity of all life. 
In a word, he bears within himself a little world. 
He must therefore strive in some simple way, and 
by the means at his command, to recreate this 
world. 

Through drawing, the child advances from 



THE LITTLE ARTIST. 2T5 

perception to picture. What lie has learned from 
life he passes in review before his sonl. It would 
seem as if he were trying to get a survey of his 
experience as a whole, in order that he may be 
able to understand its nature, discriminate its 
permanent and essential from its accidental and 
vanishing elements, and thus learn to choose 
what is good and avoid what is evil. 

Above all, however, drawing, as a creative 
activity, throws light upon the being of the 
Creator. He who would know the Creator must 
exercise his own creative power. Moreover, he 
must exercise it consciously for the production 
and representation of the good. The doing of 
what is good is the tie between Creator and 
creature. To do good with insight and intention 
makes this tie a conscious one. Therein is the 
living union of man and God — the union of indi- 
viduals with God — the union of all humanity 
with God. With this discovery we understand 
at last the point of departure for all true educa- 
tion, and the goal towards which it strives. 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE I. 
Illustrated Title-Page (see page v). 

Surrounded by her cliildren is a mother 
whose whole being is penetrated by a sense of 
the dignity and solemnity of her vocation. In 
her loyal and loving heart echo the words, 
" Come, let ns live with our children/' Through 
song she seeks to reach the hearts of her little 
ones, and to prepare them for an all-sided har- 
mony of life. 

Attracted by this active motherliness, other 
children — the children, perhaps, of relatives and 
friends — flock towards the joyous circle. Al- 
though sure of a welcome, they approach with 
modest diffidence i for the spirit of harmonious 
development hovers over this family group, and 
in the presence of such a spirit who does not feel 
shyness and reverence ? 

Those whose souls are thrilled by the musical 
accord of life will revere that which is, will guard 
that which is possessed, will nurture that which 
is in process of becoming. Hence the little girl 
in our picture is impelled to care for the growing 
plants. Most of all she loves to water the lily, 
the flower of childhood, the stainless type of 
childhood's innocence. The vigorous boy, on 

279 



280 MOTHER PLAY. 

the contrary, is prompted by the feeling of life's 
inner harmony to the observation of activity and 
growth, and his eager and wondering gaze is 
fixed upon a bird's nest, or rather upon the fledge- 
lings within the nest, who are so rapidly gaining 
the strength which shall enable them to fly high 
in the air. 

The plays of childhood become the realities of 
later life. Our little boy has grown into a vig- 
orous youth, our little girl into a fair and gentle 
maiden. They seek in Nature for an object which 
shall be, as it were, a counterpart to their own 
inmost life. The fragrance of the lily stills 
the heart-yearning of the youth. Its form, at 
once strong and delicate, appeals to the sentiment 
of the maiden. The latter rests securely in her 
harmoniously developed and still developing feel- 
ings ; the former finds his support in the intellect, 
whose strife and aspiration are for clearness of 
vision. Hence our picture shows us the maiden 
poised on the sphere which implicitly contains 
all the archetypes of form; while the youth 
stands upon the cube, which manifests with clear- 
ness the simple laws that govern and determine 
form. 

The lily, so faithfully tended by childish hands 
has burst into blossoms, which, while clinging to 
their stalk, look upward to the universal life- 
giver, the sun. In like manner, out of the lily- 
root of childish mirth and innocence have blos- 
somed the love and joy of souls aspiring towards 
the great spiritual Sun, the one source and foun- 
tain of all spiritual life. 



NOTE II. 281 

By day and by night Nature bestows her bless- 
ing upon such activities and upon such nurture. 
She pours it down upon the rays of the sun. She 
sheds it from Ariadne's crown. She says to every 
mother, to every woman who has a motherly 
heart : " Meditate and educate. Nurture the com- 
ing happy race. This work you can do, and you 
alone.'' 

The dwellers in heaven send their messenger 
to bear to this motherly, child-cherishing, human- 
ity-nurturing life, the olive branch of peace. The 
Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, hovers over it, 
giving it highest consecration. Out of the clouds 
comes a voice : " This is the nurture of my chil- 
dren in the garden of life; in it I am well 
pleased." 



NOTE II (See page 22). 

It may help the reader to catch the genetic 
idea of the Mother Play if I indicate a few stages 
in the evolution of one great insight from its first 
appearance as a typical fact in nursery rhyme to 
its comprehensive presentation in Shakespeare. 
As the Mother Play is largely concerned with the 
relationship between the particular self and the 
universal self, I choose as my point of departure 
the mental perturbations of the little woman so 
badly treated by the peddler Stout : 

"There was a little woman, as IVe heard tell, 
She went to market her eggs for to sell : 
20 



282 MOTHER PLAY. 

She went to market all on a market day, 
And she fell asleep on the king's highway. 

'' There came a little peddler, his name was Stout; 
He cut off her petticoats round about; 
He cut off her petticoats up to her knees, 
And the poor little woman began for to freeze. 

" She began to shiver, and she began to cry ; 
' Lawk-a-mercy on me ! sure it isn't I ! 
But if it be I, as I think it ought to be, 
I've got a little dog at home, and he knows me ! ' " 

The psychologic point of the rhyme is given 
in the closing lines. The little old woman de- 
pends upon the recognition of her dog to be sure 
she is herself. This is, of course, the mere in- 
articulate babble of infant reason. In Grimm's 
story of Clever Alice we hear her childish lisp. 
Hans and Alice had been married some time; 
then, one morning, Hans said : 

" Wife, I will go out to work and earn some 
money ; do you go into the field and gather some 
corn wherewith to make bread." 

" Yes," she answered, " I will do so, dear Hans." 
And when he was gone, she cooked herself a nice 
mess of pottage to take with her. As she came 
to the field, she said to herself: " What shall I do ? 
Shall I cut first, or eat first ? Ay, I will eat first." 
Then she ate up the contents of her pot, and when 
it was finished she thought to herself : ^' Now, 
shall I reap first, or sleep first ? W^ell, I think I 
will have a nap." And so she laid herself down 
among the corn and went to sleep. Meanwhile 
Hans returned home, but Alice did not come, and 



NOTE II. 283 

SO he said : " Oh, what a prudent Alice I have ! 
she is so industrious that she does not even come 
home to eat anything." Bj^-and-bye, however, 
evening came on and still she did not return ; so 
Hans went out to see how much she had reaped ; 
but, behold, nothing at all, and there lay Alice 
fast asleep among the corn. So home he ran very 
fast, and brought a net with little bells hanging 
on it, which he threw over her head while she 
still slept on. When he had done this he went 
back again and shut to the house door, and, seat- 
ing himself on his stool, began working very in- 
dustriously. 

At last, when it was quite dark, the Clever 
Alice awoke, and as soon as she stood up the net 
fell all over her hair and the bells jingled at 
every step she took. This frightened her, and 
she began to doubt whether she were really Clever 
Alice, and said to herself, " Am I she, or am I 
not ? " This question she could not answer, and 
she stood still a long while considering. At last 
she thought she would go home and ask if she 
were really herself, supposing they would be able 
to tell. When she came to the house door it was 
shut, so she tapped at the window, and asked, 
"Hans, is Alice within?" "Yes," he replied, 
" she is." Now she was really terrified, and ex- 
claiming, "Ah, heaven, then I am not Alice ! " she 
ran up to another house ; but as soon as the folks 
within heard the jingling of the bells they would 
not open their doors, and so nobody would receive 
her. Then she ran straight away from the village, 
and no one has ever seen her since. 



284 MOTHER PLAY. 

In the Hitopadesa the truth implicit in these 
two stories rises into somewhat clearer conscious- 
ness. 

" A Brahman, who had vowed a sacrifice, went 
to market to buy a goat. Three thieves saw him, 
and wanted to get hold of the goat. They sta- 
tioned themselves at intervals on the high road. 
When the Brahman, who carried the goat on his 
back, approached the first thief, the thief said, 
* Brahman, why do you carry a dog on your 
back ? ' The Brahman replied, * It is not a dog, 
it is a goat.^ A little while after, he was accosted 
by the second thief, who said, ' Brahman, why do 
you carry a dog on your back ? ' The Brahman 
felt perplexed, put the goat down, examined it, 
took it up again, and walked on. Soon after, he 
was stopped by the third thief, who said, ' Brah- 
man, why do you carry a dog on your back ? ' 
Then the Brahman was frightened, threw down 
the goat, and walked home to perform his ablu- 
tions for having touched an unclean animal. The 
thieves took the goat and ate it." * 

Readers of the Arabian Nights will recall the 
story of Abou Hassan, the young spendthrift of 
Bagdad, who was conveyed in his sleep to the 
palace of Haroun-Al-Raschid, and by the honours 
shown him on waking made to believe himself 
Sultan. Many analogous tales may be found 
both in Oriental and Occidental literature, but it 
is needless to multiply illustrations, and I will 
only remind my readers of the scene in the Tam- 

* Cited in Myths and Myth Makers. John Fiske. 



NOTE II. 285 

ing of the Shrew, wherein Christopher Sly, the 
drunken tinker, wakes to find himself trans- 
formed into a lord (Act I, Scene 2). 

The presupposition latent in all these stories 
is that the individual cannot know anything, 
least of all himself, until such knowledge is re- 
flected to him from others. In Troilus and Cres- 
sida this psychologic truth finds explicit state- 
ment. Achilles has quarrelled with Agamemnon 
and deserted the cause of his people. Ulysses 
suggests that while he stands in the entrance to 
his tent general and princes shall " pass strange- 
ly by him, as if he were forgot." He himself will 
come last and medicine his pride. The plan is 
carried out, and the following conversation takes 
place between Ulysses and Achilles : 

Achilles. How now, Ulysses? 

Ulysses. Now, great Thetis' son ! 

Achil. What are you reading ? 

Ulyss. A strange fellow here 

Writes me, that man, how dearly ever parted, 
How much in having, or without, or in. 
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, 
Nor feels not what he owes but by reflection ; 
As when his virtues shining upon others 
Heat them, and they retort that heat again 
To the first giver. 

Achil . This is not strange, Ulysses. 

The beauty that is borne here in the face 
The bearer knows not, but commends itself 
To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself — 
That most pure spirit of sense — behold itself, 
Not going from itself ; but eye to eye opposed 
iSalutes each other with each other's form. 



286 MOTHER PLAY. 

For speculation turns not to itself, 

Till it hath travelled, and is arrived there 

Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all. 

Ulyss. I do not strain at the position, 
It is familiar ; but at the author's drift ; 
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves, 
That no man is the lord of anything 
(Though in and of him there be much consisting) 
Till he communicate his parts to others: 
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught 
Till he behold them formed in the applause 
Where they are extended; which, like an arch, rever- 
berates 
The voice again ; or, like a gate of steel 
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 
His figure and his heat." 

Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 3. 

In this marvellous statement the truth that 
man knows himself through others is comple- 
mented by the truth that he must communicate 
himself to others. The individual lives in and 
through his relations with other individuals. 
Man is husband, father, son, brother, friend, an 
actor in the realm of civil society, a patriot, the 
hero of a great cause, the member of a universal 
society. Inner life is created and maintained by 
outer life, and isolating himself from his spiritual 
environment, the human being ceases to exist. 
Hence altruism is the principle of spiritual life, 
and the shallowest and vainest of all self -deceiv- 
ers are those who fondly hug the delusion that 
their " inner life " is higher and better than their 
deeds. He who loves no one is not loving. He 
who is loved by no one is not lovable. He who 



NOTE III. 287 

gives nothing is not generous. He who is con- 
stantly protecting himself against others cannot 
be helper or hero.* 



NOTE III (See page 24). 

In an autobiographical letter to the Duke of 
Meiningen, Froebel gives an account of his first 
day at school, and the impression it left upon his 
mind. This record of his own experience stands 
in such vital relation to what he has attempted 
to do for childhood that, despite the fact that it 
must be familiar to many of my readers, I ven- 
ture to quote it in full : 

"At the time of my childhood, church and 
school generally stood in strict mutual relation- 
ship. . . . The school children had their special 
places in church, and not only were they obliged 
to attend church, but each child had to repeat to 
the teacher, at a special class held for the purpose 
every Monday, some passage of Scripture used 
by the minister in his sermon of the day before, 
as a proof of attention to the service. From these 
passages, that one which seemed most suitable to 
children was then chosen for the little ones to 
master, or to learn by heart, and for that purpose 
one of the older children had during the whole 
week, at certain times each day, to repeat the 



* See Mr. D. J. Snider's Shakespearean Drama. A Com- 
mentary Histories, pp. 77-80. 



288 MOTHER PLAY. 

passage to the little children, sentence by sen- 
tence. The little ones, all standing up, had then 
to repeat the text, sentence by sentence, in like 
manner, until it was thoroughly imprinted on 
their memories. 

" I came into school on a Monday. The pas- 
sage chosen for that week was, ' Seek ye first the 
Kingdom of God." I heard these words every 
day, in the calm, serious, somewhat sing-song 
voices of the children, sometimes repeated by one 
child, sometimes by the whole number. And the 
text made an impression upon me, such as none 
had ever done before, and none ever did after. 
Indeed, this imi3ression was so vigorous and per- 
manent that to this day every word spoken with 
the special tone and expression then given to it is 
still vivid in my mind. And yet that is now 
nearly forty years ago ! Perhaps, even then, the 
simple boy's heart felt that these words would be 
the foundation and the salvation of his life, 
bringing to him that conviction which was to 
become later on to the working and striving man 
a source of unconquerable courage, of unflinch- 
ing, ever-ready, and cheerful self-sacrifice. In 
short, my introduction into that school was the 
birth of my higher spiritual life." * 

Froebel was of an introspective nature, and 
seems to have been more than usually conscious 
of the fertilising experiences of his life. The 
hazelnut blossom, from which, in early child- 



* Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel, translated by E. 
Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore, p. 83. 



NOTE 111. 289 

hood, he gained his first presentiment of the 
import of sex ; the tiny unnamed floweret into 
whose heart he peered with a haunting sense of 
the mystery of development ; the story of Samuel 
Lawill, whose magic ring apprised him by a prick 
that he was doing wrong ; a theological discussion 
between his rigidly orthodox father and a brother 
inclined towards speculation which first wakened 
in his consciousness an idea of the pendulum-like 
vibration of thought ; a table showing the rela- 
tionship between different alphabets and their 
derivation from old Phoenician characters, which 
astounded him with its suggestion of unity under 
variety; Winckelmann's Letters, which roused 
his feeling for art ; and an abridged translation 
of the Zend-Avesta, which opened his eyes to the 
historic evolution of religion — are all mentioned 
by him with full recognition of their influence 
upon his thought and character. 

His ideal of education is to fertilise the seeds 
of thought which are indigenous to the soil of 
the mind, and when they begin to grow to supply 
them with nourishment of the right kind and in 
the right amount. 

He shows his wisdom by presenting truth in 
aesthetic forms, which allure the imagination and 
rouse no antagonism by direct effort to coerce the 
will. 



290 MOTHER PLAY. 



NOTE IV (See page 32). 

Since tlie publication in 1890 of M. Tarde's 
book Les Lois de L'Imitation there has been an 
observable tendency to define all the phenomena 
of mind in terms of this once despised faculty. 
As Dr. Harris has pointed out,* such definitions 
are fruitful and suggestive, because they throw 
into relief a real continuity of function. It is 
better, however, to define imitation as an initial 
form of reflection f than to define reflection as a 
higher potency of imitation. In general, lower 
activities should be defined by higher, and not 
higher activities by lower. The heresy underly- 
ing atomic theories is the outcome of an attempt 
to explain all things from the point of view of 
sense-perception, which attributes self-existence 
and independence to finite and dependent objects. 
The heresy underlying the presentation of spir- 
itual relationships under images borrowed from 
vital organisms is the result of looking at all 
things from the point of view of the understand- 
ing, which, while perceiving universal relativity, 
does not perceive that this implies self-relation. 
The attempt to explain all mental phenomena as 
forms of imitation is interesting, because it points 
to the infinite self-communication of the divine 
mind as the final explanation of the universe. J 

* See his article on The Imitative Faculty in Education. 
New York Independent, August 2, 1894. 

f Using reflection in the sense of mirroring. 

X See Educational Psychology, Dr. Harris, pp. 11-16. 



NOTE V. 291 

The most illuminating passage in Les Lois de 
Limitation is in a note on page 397, which may- 
be translated as follows : 

" To confess my deepest thought with regard 
to the unknown and unknowable source of uni- 
versal repetitions (or imitations) I must admit 
that an infinite ambition does not suffice to ac- 
count for them. There are days when another 
explanation hovers before my mind. I suspect 
that the delight in indefinite and indefatigable 
self-repetition may be a sign of love— for in life 
and in art the characteristic mark of love is to 
repeat forever the same thing, to depict again 
and again the same subject. Then I ask myself 
if the universe, which seems to delight in monot- 
onous repetitions— does not reveal thereby rather 
an infinite heart of love than an infinite ambition. 
I cannot avoid the conjecture that all things, not- 
withstanding their warfare with each other, have 
been created con amove, and that thereby alone 
can we explain the beauty which subsists, despite 
evil and pain.'' 



NOTE V. 

PROSE TRANSLATION OF FROE BEL'S MOTTOES. 

Play v^ith the Limbs. 

When the child amuses himself by striking 
out with his arms and legs the impulse to play 
with him stirs in the mother. 

This impulse is bestowed upon her by the 
Creator. It hints to her how through the outer 



292 MOTHER PLAY. 

she may nurture the inner life — how through 
play and playful tricks she may awaken feelings, 
presentiments, and yearnings. 

Falling ! Falling ! 

In each instinctive mother play there lurks a 
deep unconscious thought. 

Even so simple a game as Falling! Falling! 
has a profound motive. 

Always and through all she does, the mother 
strives to nurture the child's intellect and aug- 
ment his force. She wishes to make him both 
strong and vigilant, so that when he begins to 
stand, walk, and run he may know how to avoid 
a fall. 

Weather-vane. 

Do you desire that your child shall understand 
another's deed ? Then let him do a similar deed. 

Herein is grounded his desire to imitate the 
activities of persons and things about him. 

All Gone. 

How does the baby explain to himself All 
gone? 

Some meaning he must find therein, or it 
would not attract him. 

What he just saw he sees no more ; what was 
above is below ; what was before him has disap- 
peared. 

Where has it gone ? 

Some one has taken it. 

See, one thing is in both. 

Therefore is the child content. 



NOTE V. 293 

Taste Song. 

Through the senses Nature speaks clearly to 
the child. 

Mother, see to it that he finds the latter (Na- 
ture) through the former (the senses). 

Through the senses the gate of the invisible 
realm is opened. 

Only the spirit, however, can bring this in- 
visible realm to light. 

In the senses the child's soul lies open. 

Nurture the senses aright, and you may se- 
curely hope that your child will later escape 
much pain and suffering. 

Through such nurture, moreover, he is pre- 
pared for clearness and joy of soul. 

For in all that Nature declares to us we may 
find traces of the fatherly love of God. 

You must early awaken in the child the tend- 
ency to seek the inner in the outer. 

If the child finds this connection (i. e., the con- 
nection between the inner and outer, between the 
seen and temporal and the unseen and eternal) he 
will thereby break for himself a path towards the 
goal of life. 

For he to whom Nature announces a law from 
God will find in his own soul the peace of God. 

Flower Song. 

Early give your child experience of the fact 
that in all living things there is revealed an 
essence which is struggling towards existence. 
Thus, in each plant one distinctive type of life 



294 MOTHER PLAY. 

is expressed alike in form, colour, and fragrance, 
because one energy brought into existence these 
several qualities. 

Tick! Tack! 

Each thing prospers only when in all its do- 
ings it keeps true time. 

Therefore, if you would have your child thrive, 
give him an orderly life and an orderly environ- 
ment. 

He who finds order repulsive loses many joys. 

Therefore, mother, win your child to love 
order. 

Order is surely a great boon to the child. 

Mowing Grass. 

Whatever you may be doing for or with your 
child, see to it that you remain in the unity of 
life. 

Do nothing unrelatedly with your child. Other- 
wise you may easily render him incapable of edu- 
cation. 

How my meaning is to be understood you will 
learn from this little game of Mowing Grass. 

Beckoning the Chickens. 

What is more charming than the baby's little 
trick of beckoning with his tiny finger ? 

It is the expression of life's living feeling 
that it is not alone in life. 



NOTE V. ^ 295 

Beckoning the Pigeons. 

The mother sees in baby's eye what gives him 
delight. 

What the child darkly and dimly feels, the 
mother tenderly and thoughtfully nurtures. 

The Fish in the Brook. 

Thither turn the child's eye, where active life 
is found. 

When such active life is in a clear transparent 
element, the child's heart swells with waves of 

joy. 

Mother, seek to cherish and preserve the feel- 
ing whence springs delight in the fresh and clear. 

The Target. 

However meaningless this play may seem, 
there is latent in it more than one might imagine. 

It is like the rough gem which only needs to 
be cut and polished in order to delight the eye 
with rainbow colours. 

It points to the truth, that distinct and even 
widely separated objects may come together in a 
harmonious unity. 

Those who love to behold truth wreathed in 
play will discover in this game many other mean- 
ings. 

The young child's soul is stirred with pre- 
sentiments of these deeper meanings of play. 
Such presentiments break for him a path towards 
insight. 

The fruition of activity is a living whole. 



296 MOTHER PLAY. 

Work should have its due wage. Nothing is 
arbitrary: facts reciprocally determine each 
other. 

Proportion is ever striving to manifest itself 
in and through all things. 

Help your child in feeling to apprehend these 
truths, and he will not fail to exhibit measure and 
proportion in his life. 

Pat-a-cake. 

Can it be that a high import is latent even in 
Pat-a-cake ? 

Yes, indeed, meaning lies hid therein. 

Willingly must each one do his part at the 
right time. 

Only thus can the joint work succeed. 

The Bird's Nest. 

To behold in a symbolic picture the love of 
children for their mother delights the child. 

Would you bless your child, renew this pic- 
ture often. 

By such renewal, what is true in life will be- 
come clear to his heart. 

The Flower Basket. 

Seek to give outward form to the feelings 
which stir the child's heart. 

Even the child's love may fade and die if it be 
not cherished. 



NOTE V. 297 

The Pigeon House. 

What the child feels iu his heart he gladly 
expresses in play. 

As pigeons love a distant flight, the child loves 
to go away from home. As pigeons fly home, the 
child soon turns his glance homeward. 

In the home let him find nurture. 

Teach him to weave into a single glowing 
wreath his many detached experiences. 

A story may bind together that which has 
been found apart. 

Thus, binding together detached experiences, 
life becomes a living whole. 

Naming the Fingers. 

Teach your child early to know the different 
members of his body. 

Teach him to name them distinctly. 

Teach him still more carefully to use them 
aright, so that when he becomes capable of pro- 
ductive activity, the objects he produces may have 
real worth. 

The Greeting. 

The child begins to be conscious of his differ- 
ent limbs. 

Therefore he loves to play with his hands and 
fingers. 

Mother love responds to this indication. 

Through such play the spirit shows that it is 
awaking. 

What stirs darkly in the child the mother 
nurtures with care. 
21 



298 MOTHER PLAY. 

The Family. 

Very early in his life the child has prescience 
of the fact that many different things may be 
one whole. 

Therefore the mother diligently teaches him 
to know the members of the family circle. 

Numbering the Fingers. 

Man does not appreciate how great is the art 
of counting. 

He scarcely suspects the magnitude of his 
achievement in making himself at home in space. 

In its higher sense, correct counting teaches 
us to choose what is good and to avoid what is 
evil. 

Hence it gives us true joys. 

The Finger Piano. 

What the child's eye sees his heart would fain 
hear. 

Many things speak to man which the outer 
ear cannot hear. 

If you would increase the joy of life give the 
child an early prescience of this truth. 

Happy Brothers and Sisters. 

When the child folds his little hands and 
seems ready for sleep, then, mother, feel it deeply 
that One is watching while all things sleep in the 
quiet night. 

Believe that through the good you think you 
are leading your child to the good. 



NOTE V. 299 

Nothing better can you give your child than 

the assurance that in the One True Life he also 

lives. 

The Children on the Tower. 

Bind into a beautiful whole all that you have 
played singly with your child. 

It rejoices us to behold a child at play. It re- 
joices us still more to watch a group of playing 
children. 

A single flower delights the child, but he finds 
greater pleasure in the variegated wreath. 

From such experiences the child may win a 
presentiment of the truth that the least thing 
belongs to the great whole. 

The Little Boy and the Moon. 

Why does the young child feel so intimately 
related to things far off in space ? 

Why does he so ardently desire contact and 
union with what is distant ? 

Mother, what shall we learn from these feel- 
ings of the child ? How shall they teach us not 
to hinder, but help his developing life ? 

Let our endeavour be to help him find the 
inner unity before he loses the outer, so that as 
objects retreat in space they may approach his 
spirit. 

Through such fostering care let us make for 
the child a ladder over which he may securely 
climb towards spiritual union with Nature. 

Disturb not your little one's blessed dream of 
unity with the great World- whole — that dream 
in which he stretches forth his hand to grasp the 



300 MOTHER PLAY. 

heavenly lights — that dream in which he knows 
of no barrier between himself and heaven. 

The Little Maiden and the Stars. 

"With whatever the child's heart is full he fills 
his environment, and all life is to him a picture 
of his soul. 

Hence he delights to impute to all objects 
human relationships. 

Parents, if you wish your child when older to 
heed your loving teaching do not interfere with 
this tendency of childhood. 

Your children will be devoutly active just in 
proportion as their hearts are penetrated bj^ the 
feeling that the loving, creative throes of Spirit 
are the source of all the activity which struggles 
for self-expression in Nature, and whose faithful 
and gentle working is manifested throughout 
Nature. 

Because they feel it to be spiritual, children 
are at one with life. Let life give back to them 
love for love. 

The Light-bird. 

The mother speaks to her child : " My darling, 
always remember that you must not grasp every- 
thing you see.'' 

The Hare. 

Though light illuminate the white wall, it can 
make no picture upon it. 

But let the skilful hand intervene between 
the light and the wall, and lo ! a picture which 
delights the baby's heart. 



NOTE V. 301 

Exercise in play your child's creative power, 
in order that, united with the power of the Eter- 
nal Light, it may turn the shadows of life into 
beautiful pictures. 

The Wolf and the Wild Pig. 

The child loves to see pictures of objects with 
which he is familiar. 

Even pictures of a wolf or a pig give him 
pleasure. 

The young child curiously observes the ways 
of animals. 

Mother, see to it that through his curiosity 
his purity of soul receive no stain. 

The Little Window. 

Why is it that the child loves to look through 
the window pane at the bright light ? * 

May it not be because out of clearness (or 
purity) blossoms a beautiful life ? 

Mother, strive to surround your child with 
clear, pure life. 

The Window. 

Gently nurture the child's obscure presenti- 
ment of a great life at one with itself. 

Help him to make a secure pathway through 
feeling to the conviction that he is himself a 
member of, or participant in, this one life. 

Help him to behold the inner in the outer, and 
to trust in the inner and not the outer. 

* Froebel is thinking of the small old-fashioned panes. See 
picture and commentary. 



302 MOTHER PLAY. 

Teach him to feel that even things which are 
farthest apart in space are inwardly one, because 
they participate in one life. 

Stir his soul with a premonition of the fact 
that each thing and all things speak to man, 
though their speech is inaudible to the outer ear, 
and create in him the lively faith that he who 
understands aright this symbolic language will 
pursue his life course with peace and joy. 

The Charcoal Burner. 

Mother, early teach your child that much may 
be done and many things may be made with few 
resources. 

Teach him how imwieldy matter may be mas- 
tered ; help him to understand that humble and 
apparently insignificant callings imply aptitudes 
and skill. 

The Carpenter. 

Whatever the child sees done by others calls 
forth something in himself. 

Therefore seek through symbolic suggestion 
to lead him with clearness from the sensible to 
the spiritual. 

The Bridge. 

Let the child discover in play how to unite 
separated things. 

Give him hints of the fact that human power 
is able to find or make connections even where 
the obstacles to union seem insuperable, and 
separation appears to be an invincible fact. 



NOTE V. 303 



The Farmyard Gate. 

Early teach your child through play to guard 
that which is dear to him from the danger of 
loss. 

He will not understand the truth you seek to 
hint to him through your playful devices. 

Nevertheless, the seed sown in his heart will 
germinate and grow, and its fruit, though long in 
ripening, will be sure to come. 

The Little Gardener. 

Would you develop in your child the love of 
nurture ? 

Give him something to nourish. 

Would you prepare him for the higher and 
more spiritual forms of nurture ? 

Grant him, wherever you can, the joy which 
comes of cherishing life. 

The Wheelwright. 

The child sees with delight in how many ways 
man can use his hands. 

The Joiner. 

That each thing has a speech of its own does 
not escape the notice of the child. 

But what is easily apprehended is often not 
appreciated. 

Therefore, parents, place due emphasis on this 
important truth. 



304 MOTHER PLAY. 

The Knights and the Good Child. 

A still presentiment lies hid within the soul 
of the child that he is not alone in life. 

Therefore he listens eagerly to what others 
say of him. 

Mother, when you notice that your child be- 
gins to be attentive to what others say of him it 
behooves you to be watchful and careful. 

He has mounted to a new plane of life. 

He has begun to hear and heed the true call of 
life. 

Sacredly guard his simplicity and purity of 
soul. 

Protect him from the illusion of false appear- 
ance. 

Teach him not to rest in mere outward show. 
Help him earnestly to strive for and win inward 
excellence.* 

The Knights and the Bad Child. 

Break for your child a path towards the high- 
est happiness of life by teaching him that all men 
are attracted by what is good, and that the good 
j9.ee from what is evil. 

* The thought in this motto is that only through the recog- 
nition of the good by others can the child learn to know the 
good. Froebel does not bid the mother teach her child to dis- 
criminate between true and false praise. He appeals to her to 
protect the child from false praise and by wise praise teach him 
to recognize and love the good. 



NOTE V. 305 

The Knights and the Mother. 

Let your child early have the experience that 
what is good must be protected. 

Let his heart be rejoiced by the knowledge 
that you value and guard what is good. 

Hide and Seek. 

Why does your child delight in Hide and 
Seek ? 

In the dawning sense of personality lies the 
secret of his joy. 

He begins to recognise himself when he hears 
his name called. 

When, therefore, he begins to love hiding 
games he has attained a new stage of develop- 
ment. 

From this time forward you must increase 
your loving care, for upon this higher plane of 
development he is confronted with new dan- 
gers. 

Let your effort be to awaken thoughtful ness, 
and to stir ideals of modesty ; for if the roots of 
his life be pure and deliberate deeds, he will 
never feel the impulse to hide from you anything 
he does. 

Cuckoo. 

What the mother's cuckoo call is to the young 
child the call of conscience is to the child of larger 
growth. 

Hearing and heeding the gentle voice, the 
child awakens to the sense of community, and 
knows that his is no isolated life. 



306 MOTHER PLAY. 

Joyfully, thenceforward, will conscience dwell 
with him, a beautiful mediator between himself 
and the Universal and Divine. 

The Toyman and the Maiden. 

The child is rejoiced by the toyman's wares. 
The mother rejoices in her child. 

The Toyman and the Little Boy. 

The toyman skilfully displays his wares. 

The child will be attracted by this display, 
and through toys may be guided by a wise love 
towards what is good. 

The Church. 

"Wherever there is harmony in the manifold, 
and especially where such harmony is expressed 
in forms and tones, thither turns the child's soul 
with prescient yearning. 

Parents, fail not to cherish this attraction. 

Above all, help your loved child early to a 
prescience of the truth, that, a high aspiration 
unites all souls. 

To break a path towards the purest joy of life 
is not so difficult as you may suppose. But the 
truth whence such joy springs must live in you, 
and be the soul of all you do. 

By stirring the consciousness of this selfsame 
truth in your child, you will give him the highest 
and most precious of all gifts — a gift which will 
remain in his soul a protective power, of which 
he cannot be robbed; a gift through which he 



NOTE V. 307 

will become at one with himself, in heart and in- 
tellect. 

Parents, inspire your child with this precious 
faith, and he will bless you for it so long as he 
lives. 

Think not he is too young to feel such faith. 
A magnet is hidden in the depths of his soul, 
which points him ever towards the unity of life, 
and by its repulsion shows him that all seeming 
isolation is illusion. 

If you desire to bind him to you, let your own 
union with the One shine through all you do. 

The Little Artist. 

How insignificant, how almost nonexistent is 
the young child's productive power ! 

Yet, mother, in least things dwells the power 
which creates greatest things. 

Whatever becomes, however immeasurably 
great, must have an apparently insignificant be- 
ginning. 

From life imperceptible, hidden in the womb 
of the great Whole, all things proceed. 

Therefore is God so godlike, great ! 

From nothing God called forth the torrents 
whose roar deafens your ear. 

From nothing he called forth the celestial 
lights. 

Has he not said : " Be faithful in the least "^ ? 
And will you ignore the appeal of the least in 
your child ? 

Do you imagine that in the child alone small 
powers are insignificant ? 



308 MOTHER PLAY. 

Believe it not ; but let your most earnest effort 
be to nurture your child's almost imperceptible 
powers.* 

* Students will have observed that the original mottoes are 
printed above the pictures. As The Child and Moon, The Wild 
Pig, and The Garden Gate lacked mottoes, the space above 
each of these pictures has been filled by the poem for the child. 
Owing to lack of space, several mottoes have been given only 
in part. These are here printed in full. 

S)cr Heine ^nabe iinb fecr SD^onb* 

SBarum fdjeinen IDinge, in bent diaumc fern, 
Slnfang^ wo\)l bent f leincn ^inb fo tnnig m\) ?— 
SBarum n^iinfc^t, crfe^nt bae ^letne m\)l fo gem, 
2)fl§ ba^ S'crne jur ^erein'gung n>dre ba? 
SBa^ mag, ?!)?utter, un^ ttjo^l bic§ sent iltnbe le^ren?— 
2)a§ n^ir fcin (gntfaltcn forbern unb ntd)t ftoren. 
2)a§, eb' ftc^ bie Xiinge in bent 5'iaunie »on i^m n^inbcn, 
(£^ bie ein'gung ^^mtfc^cn fid) unb itinen moge finben ; 
- ' 2)a^ bie innre Sintgung ju pflcgen, ju erfennen, 

(£^e ciii^erlid) bie ^^inge fid) ijont 5linbe trennen. 
ga§ burd) fold)' S3ead)ten una bent ^inb berctten 
eine feftc Seiter, fid)cr fcrtjufd)rciten. — 
©arum ftort bad Ulnblcin ntd)t in feinent fiipcn Sraunte, 
<Bi^mt 5lflcm Sin^ ju fitt)rn int groj^en 2Bcltcnraunte ; 
S33o ^a nod) frot) ben 9(rnt entgcgenftrecft bent -^intnteli^ltc^t, 

5Bo ^a nocb feine iSd)ranfe fennt, 

2)le e^ »on bent ^intniel trennt; 
!Drum in btefent fergen ilraunte |lort t^a^ ^inbletn ntc^t. 

S5a$ faiim giDciid^rige ^Jla^d)Ctt ult^ bie (Sterne* 

2Baa aud) nur intnter ta^ tinbd)en untgibt, 

gj?enfd)Uc^ «BerpUnip in client e^ Itebt ; 

2Bo»on fein ^erjd)en e^ fitMenb erfitUt, 

2)a»on ijl i^nt auc^ bad Seben ein 33ilb. 
eitern, mM \a bed ^inbed ©inn ni^t fioren, 
®oU ee fitnftig (Surer Ciebe Ce^rc ^oren. 



NOTE VI. 809, 



NOTE VI (See page 98). 

In the rhj^mes here given in prose translation, 
the child is supposed to be speaking to the flowers. 
Manifestly, however, the poem is intended for the 
mother, and expresses feelings which stir in the 
unconscious depths of the child's soul. 

" Dear flowers, you teach me what is good, and 
warn me of what is evil. 



3)cnn nur baburc^ irtrb ha^ ^anbcln t()ncn tt)id)tig ; 
!^aburd) trcrben ^'tnber cinjtg Ieben^tud)ttg, 
2Benn fie flar unb innig ba^ (Ucfuf)! burd)bringt, 
2Ba^ in ctUem ftiU mit ilraft ^er»or fid) ringt ; 
2Ba^ tn allcm Uii, bod^ treu fie mxUn fe^cn, 
2)a^ fei ctnc^ @ei)le^ liebenb fd)affenb 2Bel)en, 
Snnig ctnig fc^aucn fie barum in<J Seben, 
Snn'ge Cicbe foil e^ i^nen njtebcrgebcrt. 

9)flege lei^ be^ tinbe^ bunflea Sl^nen, 

;i)a^ ein in fi(^ einig Seben fct ; 
SWac^e fic^erem ®efii()le Sa()ncn, 

2)a§ c^ felbfl »on i^m ein ®lieb [a fei. 
SWad)e e(3 im 5iu§ern Snn'rcd fd)auen, 
Sluf bai Snn're, nid)t auf Slu^'rea trauen. 
£afi e(3 fii()Ien, rca^ aud) n?ctt getrennt erfc^etne, 
3n fid) bod) ein innig einig Sebcn eine, 
Unb ba§ jebe^, n^enn aud) I)Drbar nid)t, 
3u bent 9J?enfd)en bod) finnbilblic^ fpric^t: 
2)a§, n^er biefe (Sprcic^e red)t ocrftc^t, 
griebig, freuDig hnxd) bad Seben get)!. 

Mitdytnthin mit ^cnftcr* 

SBtUjl 2)u nun 3)ein ilinb Dir innig einen, 

Cap in adem 2)eine gin'gung ntit bcm ginigen burc^fc^cincn. 



310 MOTHER PLAY. 

" My heart beats with joy when you bend to- 
wards me, and show me all that you hide in your 
glowing cups. 

" I know that you long to give me everything 
which can foster my life, protect me from danger, 
guard my innocence of soul. 

" Let me know more than your names. 

" Teach me also your language. Help me to 
understand what you say in colour, in form, and 
in the fragrance with which you fill the air. 

" Ah ! I know what you are saying. * Love 
the truth. Avoid the pleasures which bring 
forth pain.' 

"I know that you wish to exercise all my 

©cr fkinc 3cid)ucr* 

!Ddc^ trie nennt' id) cU' bie f d) o n e n (S a (^ e n , 
!I)te mctn tinbc^cnjcic^ner.b fd)on tann mad)en? — 
2Bad cntftct)t, i\mx 5lllc<^ iricbcr fd)Jrinbct, 
2)od) bie ®d)affen^='ilraft fid) i^m »erMnbct. 

„2Bettn X)ein ^inb won bent, wa^ er fic^ fc^uf, 

5lu(^ nur wenig urn fic^ ^er erfd)aut, 
^at '(3 boc^, folgcnb fcincm (Sd)affcn^^9fJuf, 
Sine rcic^e SBelt in fic^ crbaut." 

In the orio:inal these lines are printed at the end of the 
poem for the child. They are, however, intended for the mother. 
They may be translated as follows : 

" But how shall I name all the pretty things my child can 
make. What he produces will disappear, but by producing it 
he increases his creative power." 

Mother, though your child preserves externally but little of 
what he has made, he has by following his creative impulse 
built a world within himself. 



NOTE VI. 311 

senses, so that I may learn to recognise and love 
the good. 

" I know that you desire to strengthen my will, 
so that my deeds may be like yours — i. e.,in accord 
with my nature and destiny. 

" Dear flowers, how small soever you may be, 
in each one of you an angel dwells. Or, rather, 
you yourselves are little angels, and having you 
I am never alone. 

" You long to touch my heart. You wish to 
lead me to the Father who through his love called 
both you and me into being. 

" Something else you do for me. You let me 
gather you and give you to my dear parents. 

" You are glad to fade and die, in order to let 
me have the joy of giving back love for love. 

" Surely in you is pictured the love of parents, 
who are always giving themselves to their little 
children. 

" Is there any mystery you cannot explain ? I 
think not. Every question we little children ask, 
you dear flowers can answer. 

"Never can I tell all the good things Love 
teaches me through you. But I can listen to her 
voice and heed her lessons. 

"Never will I break your stalks in wanton 
play. Should I do so, thorns of remorse would 
pierce my heart." 



312 MOTHER PLAY. 

NOTE VII. 
Closing Thoughts. 

Prose translation of Froebel's poem printed in the original 
of Mother Play after the Songs and Mottoes : 



Let us now weave our single flowers into one 
fragrant wreath. 

Let us bind our isolated plays into one living 
whole. 

Let us ask ourselves what our little child has 
gained from his plays. 

Let us furthermore make clear to our minds 
the truths which we ourselves have come to rec- 
ognise through play. 

Finally, let us seek to apprehend the import 
of these truths and their relationship to the life 
within and without us. 

If we desire to bless the child with a wise 
nurture, if we wish to guide him towards the 
true goal of life, if we aspire to prepare him for 
life-unity and harmony, we must from time to 
time cast a retrospective glance at our own pro- 
cedure. 

He who does not look backward is unable to 
move forward with assurance and safety. 

Therefore let the wreath appear which shall 
bind in one whole our separate flowers. 



NOTE VII. 313 



II. 

Life and its forces first stirred within the 
baby. He moved his limbs (Play with the 
Limbs). 

Through his senses he sucked food for his 
soul (Taste and Flower Songs). 

He learned to know objects and their quali- 
ties even before he was able to name them. 

He tried in different ways to bring distant 
things near him, and to remove near things from 
him, so that he might inwardly apprehend them 
(Falling! Falling! Calling Chickens, Fishes, Child 
and Moon, Boy and Moon). 

III. 

Next the child tried to join together separated 
things, and to find some tie between differing 
things (Target, Finger Songs, Family, Grass- 
mowing, Pat-a-cake, Carpenter, etc.). 

He began to distinguish himself from others, 
to appropriate things which were pleasant to him, 
and to repel and avoid things unpleasant. In his 
plays he revealed a dawning self-consciousness 
(Light Songs). 

He learned to seek for causes and energies, 
and to distinguish between grounds and conse- 
quences (Weather-vane, Bird's Nest, Trade Songs, 
etc.). 

He showed traces of thought, power to draw 
conclusions, ability to discriminate between many 
different objects and to choose and appropriate 
22 



314 MOTHER PLAY. 

those he liked (Toyman and Maiden, Toyman 
and Boy). 

He began to relate the words and deeds of 
others to himself (Knights), and to order all his 
separate experiences into a little world of his own 
making (Children on the Tower, Little Artist). 

IV. 

Through a nurture responsive to these indica- 
tions and re-enforced by some inevitable stripes 
and pain the child will learn the great lesson of 
life — the lesson that he cannot be permitted to 
indulge in arbitrary caprice — the lesson that he 
is both a free being and a dependent being. In a 
word, he will come to understand that a great 
Power reigns in the universe, and that this great 
Power gives and creates true freedom. 

With premonition of this truth the child be- 
gins to care for what his elders think of him 
(Songs of the Knights). When he attains this 
stage of development, then, mother, it is in your 
power to lead him in the path of right. You may 
allure him to so love the good that by self-impul- 
sion he will turn away even from evil thoughts. 
A new power or organ is sprouting within him. 
It seems at times like a voice, at times like an 
ear. It teaches him what is right and good. It 
warns him to avoid the bad. Through this ger- 
minating power you may incline him, if you will, 
towards all that is pure and righteous. Teach 
him to consider and follow what is right in his 
own deeds. Teach him to recognise and honour 
the good in others (Knights, Hide and Seek, 



NOTE VII. 315 

Cuckoo). By such watchful guidance you may 
help him to love, revere, and obey this inner 
power, even before he knows its name. You 
may also teach him to love its manifestations in 
others. When j^ou have brought your child to 
the point that of himself he shuns the base and 
ignoble, of himself inclines toivards the pure and 
good — yea, feels that purity and goodness are the 
very life of life — then, and not till then, may you 
point out to him through clear and precise pre- 
cepts how he may attain the goal of human ex- 
istence. 



V. 

And now, at last, dear mother, ask yourself 
what great insights have grown clear to you 
through your play with your child and what 
inward power you have won. 

Have you not learned the unity and whole- 
ness of man's being ? 

Have you not beheld your own inmost being 
reflected in that of your child ? 

Have you not come to realise through his de- 
veloping life how out of imperfection you too are 
striving and growing towards the perfect ? 

Only by pressing through darkness towards 
the light can that which is highest be won. Man 
carries within him the unity of life. This life- 
unity is an impelling force. To man is given the 
power to cherish and nurture it. No obstacles 
and no dangers shall deter him from making 
actual this inwardly impelling ideal. 



316 MOTHER PLAY. 

VI. 

So mucli you have learned of yourself. And 
now what have you learned about the outer 
world ? Have you not found that things seem- 
ingly different are inwardly one ? Have you not 
learned that all separation exists in and for 
union ? Has it not become clear to you that all 
things are related ; that each thing helps all 
things, and is in turn helped by all ? And re- 
ciprocal relation — does it not imply an inde- 
pendent all-including whole ? 

VII. 

Hear the conclusion of the whole matter : In 
all things works one creative life, because the 
life of all things proceeds from one God. 



NOTE Vin (See page 107). 

The following sentences were thoughtlessly 
omitted at end of commentary on Mowing Grass : 

" Now, mother, it is clear to me why the two 
children sitting under the trees seem so sunk in 
thought. May the truths which the trees express 
never echo from their own experience through 
their hearts! Mother, mother, may you never 
need to fear anything of this kind for your chih 
dren! Happy boy mowing so vigorously ; sturdy 
little maiden merrily following the hay-cart, it 
will surely not happen to you." 

(1) 

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" A work which will be of great help to the reader and student of French, and 
which fully meets the promise of its title." — Chicago Evening Post. 

J~^ON' T J or, Directions for avoiding Improprieties in 
-^-^ Conduct and Common Errors of Speech. By Censor. Parch- 
ment-Paper Edition, square i8mo, 30 cents. Vest- Pocket Edi- 
tion, cloth, flexible, gilt edges, red lines, 30 cents. Boudoir 
Edition (with a new chapter designed for young people), cloth, 
gilt, 30 cents. i3Sth thousand. 
"Don't " deals with manners at the table, in the drawing room, and in public, with 
taste in dress, with p'^rsonal habits, with common mistakes in various situations in life, 
and with ordinary errors of speech. 

'HAT TO DO. A Companion to "Don't." By 
Mrs. Oliver Bell Bunce. Small i8mo, cloth, gilt, unifoim 
with Bojidoir Edition of *' Don't," 30 cents. 
A dainty little book, containing helpful and practical explanations of social usagei 
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RRORS IN THE USE OF ENGLISH. B> 
the late William B. Hodgson. LL. D., Fellow of the College 
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Books by and about Froebel. 

The Education of Man. By Friedrich Froebel. Translated 
by W. N. Hailmann, Ph. D. $1.50. 
In all directions this book sounds the keynote of a new edncation. It lifts all educa- 
tional work from narrow, merely utilitarian standpoints, to an intensely and broadly 
Chii>tian view of life; it measures every activity by its influence on character and full 
life eliilc ency. In all questions of system and method Froebel places the teacher on 
solid ground, and indicates the way to lottiest achievements. 

Froebel's Laws for all Teachers. By James L. Hughes. $1.50. 

This book is a clear and comprehensive statement of Froebel's principles, adapted 
to the work of every one engaged in the education and the training of humanity in the 
kinder :;arten, the school, the university, or the home. It is the most intelligible expo- 
sition of ihe fundamental principles of the ]\ew Education as revealed by Froebel. 

Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. By Friedrich Froebel. 
Translated by Josephine Jarvis. $1.50. 
This volume contains a practical elucidation of the theories of Froebel, and will be 
invaluable to earnest educators — particularly to parents, kiiidergartners, and primary 
school-teachers. Froebel explains very fully and carefully his motives for the eniire 
plan of the work and play of the kindergarten, and its purpose and influence on life. 

Education by Development. By Friedrich Froebel. Trans- 
lated by Josephine Jarvis. $1.50. 
In this volume the educational principles underlying the " gifts " are more thor- 
oughly discussed than in •' The Pedagogics of the Kindergarten." The student of 
Froebel has great advantage, therefore, in reading " Education by Development," in- 
asmuch as Froebel cast new light on his thoughts in each exposition that he made. 

The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's 
Mother-Play. By H. R Eliot and Susan E. Blow. $1.50. 

The Songs and Music of friedrich Froebel's Mother-Play. 

Prepared and arranged by Susan E. Blow. $1.50. 
The increased interest in kindergarten work and the demand for a clearer exposition 
of Fi )'.bei's philosophy have given these excellent bcoks the widest popularity. No 
one could be better equipped for their preparation than Miss Blow. In the first vol- 
ume thi original pictures have been faithfully reproduced. 

Symbolic Education. A Commentary on Froebel's Mother-Play. 
By Susan E. Blow. Si. 50. 

This book discusses in a practical way the foundations of the philosophy of Froebel 
as found in "The Mother's .Soncs and Games," and shows the sienificance of f e 
kindTgarten and its cbims for being the cornerstone upon which all child education 
should rest. It is emphatically a book for mothers as well as for teachers. 

Froebel's Mother-Play Pictures. Three scries. Plain and 
colored. See special list for prices and description. 

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Some Ill-used Words. 

A Manual for the Use of those who Desire to Write and Speak correctly, 
iSmo. Cloth, -ti.oo. 

The book is leveled specially at some half dozen errors that are made by well-nigh 
every one who uses the English language. 

The Orthoepist. 

A Pronouncing^ Manual, containing about Four Thousand Five Hundred 
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iSmo. Cloth, I1.25. 

" It is sufficient commendation of the work to say that for fourteen years this little 
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The Verbalist. 

A Manual devoted to Brief Discussions of the Right and the Wrong Use 
of Words, and to some other Matters of Interest to those who would Speak 
and Write with Propriety. Revised and enlarged edition. i8mo. Cloth, 
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" A. great deal that is worth knowing, and of which not even all educated people are 
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A little Book for the Guidance of such Men and Boys as wouM Appear to 
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possesses hitjh literary merit." — Chicago Evening Jinrnal. 

"One of the best and most comprehensive manuals on social observances." — Boston 
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Acting and Actors ; 

Elocution and Elocutionists. A Book about Theater Folk and Tleatcr Art. 
With Preface by Harrison Grey Fiske ; Introduction by Edgar S. Werner ; 
Prologue by James A. Waldron. idmo. Cloth, §1.25. 

"A book which has exceeding intere-^t. Thf author talVs in a very pgreeable and 
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those who sit in th- orchestra chairs, it has a special value for the ladies nnd gentlemen 
of the stage." — ATezo i'or/e Herald, 

The English Grammar of William Cobbett. 

Carefully revised and annotated by Alfred Ayres. With Index. iSmo. 
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LITERATURES OF THE WORLD. 
Edited by EDMUND GOSSE, 

Hon. M. A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



A succession of attractive volumes dealing with the history of litera- 
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and fifty 12 mo pages, and will treat an entire literature, giving a uni- 
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relation to previous and to contemporary work. 

Each, J2mo, cloth, $J.50» 

NOW READY, 

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Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford. 

Russian Literature. By K. Waliszewskl 

Bohemian Literature. By Francis, Count Lutzow, author of 
" Bohemia : An Historical Sketch." 

Japanese Literature. By W. G. Aston, C. M. G., M. A., late Act- 
ing Secretary at the British Legation, Tokio. 

Spanish Literature. By J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Member of the 
Spanish Academy. 

Italian Literature. By Richard Garnett, C. B., LL. D., Keeper 
of Printed Books in the British Museum. 

Ancient Greek Literature. By Gilbert Murray, M. A., Professor 
of Greek in the University of Glasgow. 

French Literature. By Edward Dowden, D. C. L., LL. D., Pro- 
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Modern English Literature. By the Editor. 

IN PREPARATION. 

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GERMAN literature. 

HUNGARIAN LITERATURE. By Dr. ZoltAn BEaxHY, Professor of Hun- 
garian Literature at the University of Budapest. 

LATIN LITERATURE. By Dr. Arthitr Woolgar-Verkall, Fellow and 
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MODERN SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE. By Dr. Georg Bkandrs, 
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studies on the tendencies and potencies of the chief peoples of the wond, 
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NOW JiJ^:AD}\- 

THE SPANISH PEOPLE. 

By Dr. Martin A. S. Hume. 

" The reader quickly perceives that the riches promised by Dr. Powell 
are amply found, at least in this first volume. The history is written with a 
new object and from a new standpoint ; there is not a dull page in it. 
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and his picture of the development of the Spaniard is an important history 
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THE FRENCH PEOPLE. 

By Arthur Hassall, M. A., Student of Christ Church, 
Oxford; Author of "The Balance of Power," etc. 

In accordance with the general plan of the series, this important work 
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the sources, development, and transitions of a great race are fully indicated 
in a comparatively small compass, the author's aims and results differ widely 
from the set record of political, dynastic, and military facts which are chron- 
icled in the dry language of the usual hand-book. The part that France has 
played in the world's history has been frequently so picturesque and dra- 
matic, as well as great, that a vital analysis of her history like this posses'^es 
a profound interest. The author is one of the ablest of the rising English 
historians and a lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford. 

IN PREPARATION: 

THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. 

By J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly. 

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SPENCER'S SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY, 

J2mOt doth, $2.00 per volume. 

iVLtr EDITION OF 

F'irst Principles. 

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This fundamental and most important work has been changed in 
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and wholly reset. It is now lorty years since the author began the 
" First Principles," and its presentation in this definitive form, with 
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The contents of the several volumes of the series are as follows: 

1. First Principles. I. The Unknowable. II. The Knowable. 

2. The Principles of Biology. Vol. i. I. The Data of Biology. 

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3. The Principles of Biology, Vol. 2. IV. Morphological Devel- 

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Psychology. II. The Inductions of Psychology, III. General 
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5. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 2. VI. Special Annlysis. 

VII, General Analysis. VIII, Congruities. IX, Corollaries. 

6. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. i. I. The Data of Soci- 

ology. II. The Inductions of Sociology. III. Ihe Domestic 
Relations. 

7. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 2. IV. Ceremonial Insti- 

tutions. V. Political Institutions. 

8. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 3. VI. Ecclesiastical In- 

stitutions. VII. Professional Institutions. VIII. Industrial 
Institutions. 

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II. The Inductions of Ethics, III. The Ethics of Individual 
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cence. VI. The Ethics of Social Life : Positive Beneficence. 

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Outlines of the Earth's History. 

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Studies of Good and Evil. 

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Wages and Capital. 

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What is Electricity ? 

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The Psychology of Suggestion. 

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Principles of Education Practically 
Applied. — Revised. 

By James M. Greenwood, Superintendent 
of Schools, Kansas City, Mo. Vol. 50. Ji.co. 

This eminently practical book assumes that education 
is a science ; that school-teachers can understand the 
principles of this science ; and that m their daily work 
they can apply these with unerring certainty to the chil- 
dren under their control. The teacher is told plainly 
what to do as well as what to avoid. The directions 
therefore are simple, pointed, and emphatic. 

Since the original publication of this bock (1887) some 
methods, then foreshadowed, have been worked out in 
detail, such as the teaching of arithmetic, geography, and 
United States history. In this revised edition several 
chapters have been recast to indicate the best methods, 
while the spirit and general tone of helpfulness in the first 
edition have been preserved intact. 

The author's independent and alert observations will 
be found an invaluable aid to the practical teacher, not 
only in the matter of inventing successful devices, but in 
seeing the eternal principles that form the basis of intelli- 
gent criticism. 

The book deals with school and class management; 
the conduct of recitations ; the art of questioning ; 
methods of teaching reading, composition, language, pen- 
manship, geography, history, and arithmetic. There is an 
extremely sensible chapter on Health and Hygiene, and the 
volume closes with '^ Only a Boy," a bright and suggestive 
study of familiar types. 

D. APPLETON A?Jn COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



NEWS FOR KINDERGARTNERS. 

The Froebel Mother-Play Pictures, as reproduced 
in Miss Blow's book, "Mottoes and Commentaries," 
are now furnished printed in colors from lithographic 
plates. 

I. Play with the Limbs. 2. The Wind. 3. All Gone. 4. Tick- 
Tack. 5. Grass Mowing. 6. Beckoning the Chickens. 7. Beckoning 
the Pigeons. 8. The Fish in the Brook. 9. Pat-a-Cake. 10. The 
iird's Nest. 11. The Flower Basket. 12. The Pigeon House. 
13. Naming the Fingers. 14. The Greeting. 15. The Family. 
16. The Children on the Tower. 17. The Child and the Moon. 
18. The Light- Bird. 19. The Shadow Rabbit. 20. The Little Win- 
dow. 21. The Carpenter. 22. The Bridge. 23. The Farm-Yard Gate. 
24. The Garden Gate. 25. The Little Gardener. 26. The Wheel- 
wright. 27. The Joiner. 2S. The Knights and the Good Child. 
2g. The Knights and the Bad Child. 30. The Toyman and the 
^Iaiden. 31. The Toyman and the Boy. 32. The Church. 

Size of pictures, 4x6 inches. Size of sheet, 5x7 inches. Price 
per dozen, 18 cents ; per hundred, $1.25. 

This series of the Froebel Mother-Play Pictures is designed for the use 
of the pupils in kindergarten classes. The low price and convenient size of 
these reprints make it practicable to place in the hands of each child a copy 
of the picture which is the subject of a lesson at any time, while the coloring 
makes them not only more attractive, but brings out ihe details of the pic- 
ture with much more distinctness. 

Also, the complete list of forty=six pictures reprinted from " Mot- 
toes and Commentaries," uncolored. Per hundred, 50 cents. 



Other reproductions of Froebcl's MotherT^Iay Pictures : The 
Bridge; Beckoning the Pigeons; Grass Mowing; The Wheelwright. 
Artistically printed in colors from stone. 

Size of pictures, 10x15 inches. Size of sheet, 14x21 inches. 
Price per dozen, $2.00. Single picture, postpaid, 18 cents. 

The following are uncolored : The Bird's Nest ; The Wind ; The 
Knights and the Good Child ; The Pigeon House; Pat-a-Cake ; 'i he 
Fish in the lircok ; The Little Gardener ; The Children on the Tower ; 
The Greeting ; The Family ; The Light-Bird ; The Child and the 
Moon. 

Size of pictures, 12x18 inches. Size of sheet, Ijx23j4 inches. 
Price per dozen, $1.25. Single picture, postpaid, 12 cents. 

D, APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



